


Part 2: A New Life

by peldarjoi



Series: Terrorists Don't Get to Be Heroes [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Bajorans, Canon-Typical Violence, Cardassians, F/M, Gen, Non-Explicit Sex, Original Character(s), Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-08-19 23:25:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8228318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peldarjoi/pseuds/peldarjoi
Summary: Her life had been singularly focused on one task. Now that her people are free from Cardassian rule she is forced to find new purpose, and struggles to adapt as her life starts over.





	1. BAJOR: 9372 (2370, EARTH CALENDAR)

**Author's Note:**

> It is very important that you have read Part 1 before reading Part 2. I don't do a lot of re-explaining of events and people from Part 1.

Ren beamed down to the front walk of what had obviously once been a beautiful home. Only a few weeks ago it had been returned to the possession of Kee’s family. As he walked up the path past tangles of weeds and overgrown bushes, he eventually spotted her. She was restacking the stones of a retaining wall that had collapsed.

When Kee lifted another stone to place on the top of the others, he could see part of the dark scar that ran across her back. He wondered, not for the first time, whether he had been too hard on her about her actions that day. It had been a difficult lesson but an important one. In the end, she’d become a better soldier for it. And that’s what he’d always wanted for her anyway. Because the better she was, the better chance she’d have to survive it all. And she did.

As he approached she greeted him without looking up. “How’d you know it was me?” He asked.

She stood to stretch her back, “You walk like a Talarian lumberjack. You’re pretty hard to miss.”

Ren stepped close to her and encircled her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around him to return the embrace, then pulled back and looked at him. “Look at you!” She exclaimed, noting his red militia uniform. “This looks good on you. I especially like the rank insignia, Captain.”

“They gave me one of the old ships from before the Occupation. The Krehu.”

She smiled wide at him, but there was something else in her eyes, “You deserve it.”

The two of them sat down on a finished section of the retaining wall. She looked more than just physically exhausted. “How’ve you been?” He asked her.

“I’m ok.” She lied. After a moment she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, looking at the ground, “This is what we worked so hard for so long for, right?” Her voice waivered a tiny bit and she paused. He waited, he knew her well enough not to push her. Finally, she sighed heavily and continued, “I guess I just need time to get used to this kind of life.”

She was trying to make this work, but he could see how unhappy she was. Again he waited for her to continue. She looked up at the sky and took a shaking breath, “My brother won’t speak to me.” She shrugged and looked at him, “When he occasionally does, it ends with an argument.” She looked down at her hands, “My mother…” she paused again, trying to find words, “I think she expected things between us to be like they were before. That we’d have that relationship that we once did.” She hung her head over her hands, “But I can’t. Too much has changed, that person I once was is gone.” She took a deep, calming breath. “What she wants is the girl I used to be, not who I am now.”

Ren scooted closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a few moments while he did what little he could to comfort her. He hated to see her in this position and selfishly wanted to encourage her to run off with him and join the militia, but he had to sympathize with her mother. If he’d had a daughter taken away from him, he’d want nothing more than to have her back. “Give it some time.” He advised her, “If things don’t get better after a while, you can think about making a change. But for now, just give yourself and them some time to adjust.”

She nodded, still with her head against his shoulder. “She blames you, you know.” She scoffed, “Because I couldn’t possibly have made such a decision myself.”

There were times when he wondered if he’d done the right thing accepting her into their group. After one of their intense training sessions Oardoli had expressed her concerns. _“You’re pushing her too hard.”_ She’d said.

But the fact was that she’d been driven from the very start. _She_ was pushing _him_ , demanding more, wanting to be better, stronger. _“I’m not pushing her at all.”_ He’d actually had to insist that they take a break that time.

 _“Then_ you _need to make her slow down. Otherwise she’ll give everything she’s got and have nothing left when it really counts.”_

He’d tried to take her advice, but Kee wouldn’t back down, always demanding more and more. But could he have done more to slow her down? Could he have brought himself to discourage her? “I’m not surprised. After all, it was ultimately my decision.”

She pulled away from him and laughed, “Aww, that’s cute. No it wasn’t.”

It felt good to laugh together again, he hadn’t realized how much he missed them all. “Is Joial around?”

“He’s down at the lake working on repairing the boat. I’m sure he’d be happy to have you stop by.”

Ren stood up. He wanted to swoop in and fix everything for her, but what she really needed was space to figure out who she would be apart from him and the Resistance and what she wanted to do. “We’ll be in orbit a few more days. I’ll stop by again before we leave.”

“I’d like that.” 

* * *

Kee gathered a few items for her mid-day meal. Even a year after the end of the occupation, such a thing still felt like a luxury. After the Cardassians had pulled out, she and some of her former colleagues had worked with a group from Starfleet for a time. At first working nearly 18-hour days putting up temporary shelters and distributing relief supplies from the Federation, later as the need became less desperate some of the others moved on to other pursuits. She stayed on for a while, but after just under half a year she’d come home to help her family.

Before the occupation her grandparents had owned a large house on Paadra Lake. By their d’jarra they were fishers and worked on the lake. When her mother was a child the Cardassians seized the property to house one of their officers and the family was sent to the refugee camp where Kee grew up. As the provisional government continued to organize they began returning stolen property back to the rightful owners. As the only living branch of the family, Kee’s mother had taken ownership.

Unfortunately, the Cardassians had abandoned the place a decade earlier, so most of Kee’s days were spent repairing and restoring the building and the grounds. Her mother and brother had ended up returning to their d’jarra out of necessity. With a property on a productive fishing lake, a boat that had been left on the shore and the knowledge Jora had acquired during her childhood, they had decided it was their best option.

Kee, however, despised fish. Alive or dead, she hated the slimy, stupid things with their unblinking eyes. The family had eventually reached an agreement, Edda and their mother would fish the lake, Joial and his wife would manage the transportation and sale of the fish and Kee would continue the restoration work, care for the vegetable garden and generally keep the house running. Her life had become an endless cycle of cooking, cleaning, yardwork and repair.

 _If Traie was here…_ she immediately banished the thought. She couldn't bring herself to think about what her life would have been like if he'd lived.

After finishing her meal, she stared out the kitchen window, imagining she could see past the cloudy sky, past the B'hava'el system to the stars beyond. Her life had once had purpose, but now she felt lost and out of control. Trapped. She shook her head, scolding herself. _As though I ever had much control over my life._

Circumstances had pushed and pulled her in directions she wouldn’t have necessarily chosen, although she couldn’t imagine her life any other way than it had unfolded. The truth was that she missed the part of her old life that had given her a sense of purpose. The part where she fought to protect people, where she sought justice in an unjust world. She never wanted to go back to those horrible days, but still, she missed it.

That’s why she had made the decision she had, and why tonight she would have to tell her family that she planned to leave them to join Starfleet. Again and again she found her thoughts returning to the three Starfleet officers she’d met on that moon in the Panora system. She didn’t even know their real names, but they’d had more of an impact on her than she’d realized at the time. That they’d risked their lives for her people when it wasn’t even their fight, they had no stake in it, was something that her thoughts had hung up on many times since.

She would probably never know if their efforts had any impact in shortening the Occupation, but the fact that they’d tried spoke volumes about their courage, their integrity and their principles. And she wanted to be one of them. Starfleet would give her an opportunity to make a difference in the universe. Or just in individual lives. She felt that the Prophets had guided them into her path for some purpose, that They were guiding her life toward something and she intended to see it through.

That afternoon Kee pondered those thoughts as she busied herself with yardwork. It was planting season and she had spent a considerable amount of time planning the most efficient use of the space they had. She spent hours transplanting seedlings that she had started indoors during the early spring. As she enjoyed the smell of the fresh dirt she considered what it would mean to leave the planet that she’d had a small part in reclaiming, but the decision still felt good. The position of the sun told her that her family would be returning soon and she not only had to prepare the evening meal, but she also had to decide what to say to them.

* * *

“You can’t be serious!” Kee’s mother said, nearly shouting.

“I’ve already made my decision.” She said, trying to keep her tone even. Her brother ignored them continued to eat his meal, no doubt he’d later accuse her of abandoning them again. That is, if he said anything to her at all. There were times when they’d gone weeks without speaking to one another. Her mother’s reaction wasn’t far from what she’d expected either.

“You probably wouldn’t even get in. Keedra, you have no education.”

Kee bristled at the jab, “There are programs for people like me with no _formal_ education. It might take me as much as two years to complete the prerequisites. And I still need to get a command level officer to sponsor me.” She had gotten to know a few officers during her time working with the restoration teams and was sure she could find someone there to sponsor her.

“Why can’t you just join the militia? Isn’t _that captain_ always trying to convince you to do that?” She argued. Ren and his crew spent most of their time patrolling Bajoran space. He had tried multiple times recently to get her to sign up and join his crew, but even though she’d love to be under his command again, it wasn’t what she wanted. “At least then you’d still be in the area. But going all the way to Earth??”

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Kee began, but Edda interrupted her.

“Of course we wouldn’t understand,” he stood, picking up his empty dishes, “we’re just worthless _civilians_ after all.” With that he stomped away.

She ignored him. “I’ve made my decision.” She repeated.

“No. I forbid it.” Her mother said.

“You _forbid_ it?” She said, finally losing her temper. “You can’t _forbid_ me from doing _anything!_ ”

Jora stood up so quickly her chair tipped over backwards. “We’ll see about that.” With that she picked up her dishes and followed Edda into the kitchen.

Kee rested her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. After a long time she said, “I’m suffocating here,” to Joial who had wisely remained silent during the exchange.

He scooted his chair close to hers and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I know.” He let a moment pass and kissed her forehead before continuing. “If that’s all it is, then why _not_ join the militia?”

She raised her head to rest her chin on her hands. She’d never told the others about those Starfleet officers, couldn’t without digging up everything else that happened on that mission. And that was a box that she could never bring herself to open. “There’s more to it than that. I’ve given my life to Bajor. I’ve given _everything_. I hate to leave it, but…” She sighed, “I just _need_ to go.”

“Ok. You know you have my support in whatever you choose, for whatever reasons you choose it.” His tone became less serious, “Besides, it sounds like we have at least two years to get used to the idea.”

“And two years for my mother to try to convince me otherwise.”

“She’ll come around.”

* * *

Joial waited a few days before approaching Jora about Kee’s decision. He wasn’t thrilled about her leaving, but it was clear she wasn’t happy here and hadn’t been all along. All his life he’d hoped for a chance to have an ordinary life where he could settle down with his wife, have children and put his skills to use for some productive task. Kee, on the other hand, had never expressed such a desire. Especially after having lost Traie. Focusing her existence solely on the pursuit of justice for their people.

It was late evening and he found Jora in the doorway of Kee’s bedroom. Kee had fallen asleep, still dressed on top of her bed with a padd in her hand, no doubt already studying those Starfleet prerequisites.

“I don’t want to lose her.” Jora whispered.

“You’re not going to lose her, she’ll just be a little farther away.”

Jora turned away and walked toward the upstairs sitting room. “But Starfleet is so dangerous.”

Joial suppressed a scoff, she had no idea how much Kee had faced, how close she’d come to death or how many times. And Kee wanted to keep it that way. “Trust me, she can handle herself.”

She sat down on a stuffed chair and he joined her in the opposite one. “She shouldn’t have to. She should never have been in that situation in the first place.”

“None of us should have. But that’s the way it was.”

“It was irresponsible of that Ren to turn her into a soldier, she was just a little girl.” She argued, not for the first time.

“He didn’t have much of a choice, she insisted on joining. Flat-out refused to budge.”

“Don’t defend him!” She said, beginning to raise her voice. “He could have said no.”

He looked at her sideways, “Have you _met_ Kee? You know as well as I do that when she puts her mind to something, there’s no talking her out of it.”

“So, now you’re going to blame _her?_ ”

He was not going to be baited. “Give her some credit, Jora. I don’t know anyone else who could have done what she did. Can you image the courage it took for her to stand up to fifteen seasoned resistance fighters and _demand_ a place among them?” He could see he wasn’t getting through. “She has my admiration, that’s all I can say.”

Jora waved off his statement, as tired as he was of this same argument. “I just don’t understand why she can’t stay and enjoy the life that she worked for. She deserves to have a life.”

“You’ll get no argument there. But doesn’t she deserve to decide what that life will be?” She finally backed down, but he had no illusions that this was the last time they were going to have this discussion.


	2. STARFLEET: 2372, YEAR 1

Kee had only a few seconds to catch her breath between the moment one characterless holographic opponent disappeared and the next one materialized. Her first week on Earth had been filled with a series of aptitude tests to help map out her class load for the next four years. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been working on the Unarmed Hand Combat Placement Test, or even what level she had achieved. She hoped she’d at least reached the intermediate level.

This time she heard the sound of the hologram appearing behind her, but before she could turn around, he hit her between the shoulder blades. With holodeck safeties on, the lack of pain was more unnerving than the actual pain would have been. She swung her elbow back to strike him in the face then spun around and kneed him in the side.

As he staggered back without disappearing, a second opponent appeared behind her and she turned and kicked into his chest. By the time she turned back to opponent one, he had begun to recover and she jabbed her elbow into the crook of his neck, then grabbed the back of his head and smashed her knee into his face.

Opponent two grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her for a headlock. Kee positioned her foot behind his, twisted her body so she could reach around behind his back to grab his face with her hand. Then pushed back, tripping him over her foot and slammed him into the mat.

She turned back in time to see opponent one in mid-swing as he punched at her but she deflected it with her forearm. He threw another punch. She leaned to the side to dodge it. As his arm flew past her, she grabbed it and pulled him toward her as she turned her back toward him and jabbed her elbow into his ribs hard enough that they might have broken if he was a real person.

Opponent two wrapped both hands around the back of her neck and pulled her close to him. She grabbed his shoulders with one arm on the outside of his and one on the inside. With her leverage and lower center of gravity she twisted around and flipped him onto his back.

Before she could turn back, opponent one grabbed her from behind around her shoulders. She elbowed the same spot in his ribs and threw him over her head onto opponent two who was finally staying down.

Opponent one sprung quickly back to his feet and immediately charged. She tried to dodge, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around holding her left arm tight behind her back and twisting her right wrist up and behind her head over her shoulder.

Any direction she pulled tightened his grip. With an almost imperceptible movement she shifted her weight to her right foot then reached back with her left and hooked it around his right knee causing it to buckle. As he fell he pulled her down with him. She landed on her back on top of him smashing his nose with the back of her head.

She rolled off and sprung back to her feet as quickly as her aching muscles would allow. As her opponent got back to his feet she kicked one leg toward his chest but he grabbed her foot before it hit its target. She dropped her hands to the floor so support her and used her free leg to kick his unprotected chest.

As he staggered back, she pressed her advantage and hit him in the jaw with her elbow then the nose with the heel of her hand in rapid succession. With that he dropped to the floor and vanished along with his cohort.

Kee waited for the next one, but instead she the computer announced. “Final level passed. No recommended training courses in this area.”

It took a few moments for her to register what the computer had just said. She dropped to her hands and knees to catch her breath and heard a couple of enthusiastic whoops and shouts from around her. She pushed herself upright to see that the instructors and other cadets had stopped to watch. For how long, she had no idea, she’d been singularly focused on her task. Too exhausted to acknowledge them, she just let her head drop to her chest and worked to bring her breathing under control.

As the other cadets returned to their own placement tests, she saw Commander Baker out of the corner of her eye walking toward her. She forced herself to stand up on shaking legs and squared her shoulders to meet him.

“Nice work, Cadet.” He said when he reached her.

“Thank you.” She said, still breathing hard.

“Report to my office after you’ve hit the sonic shower.” He suggested. “Say, ten minutes?”

“Of course.” She said with more confidence than she felt.

With that he walked away to observe another cadet and she headed toward the locker room. The last thing she wanted to do right now was sit down with an instructor, she wanted nothing more than to lay down somewhere soft with a couple dozen icepacks for her screaming muscles. What could he possibly have to say to her beyond ‘nice work’ anyway?

* * *

Baker waited for Cadet Norvish at his desk. Precisely ten minutes after he’d spoken to her, she walked in wearing a standard cadet’s uniform with gold shoulders. He’d read up on all of the cadets entering the security division, of course, but her file stood out like a blaring claxon. There were areas where her education was still lacking by Federation standards, but it was obvious that she’d worked hard over the last few years to qualify for the Academy. She’d been in the Bajoran Underground for something like seven years, which made sense with what he’d seen today. He looked forward to seeing how she scored in the other areas of the security division.

He held up his cup of coffee toward the replicator next to his desk, “Feel free to grab something to drink.”

“Coffee, extra strong, double sweet with cream.” She said and seated herself across the desk from him.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a double-sweet-coffee type.”

She let out a small laugh, “My uncle says I like to have a little bit of coffee in my sugar.”

He chuckled, “I’ll have to remember that one.” He got right to his point, “What you did back there was impressive. Only a few cadets pass the UHC Placement Test each year. You must have been a formidable opponent during your time in the Bajoran Underground.”

“I had a good teacher. The leader of our cell trained me personally.”

That explained some of it, “What I saw was more than just rehashing some trained moves, though. You have excellent improvisation.”

She shrugged off the complement, “Try being my size and standing up to a Cardassian soldier three times your weight. You learn to do what you have to do.”

“I can imagine. I’m looking forward to seeing how you score in other areas.” He said, trying to steer the conversation, he needed to get a feel for this cadet, “Any guess what you’ll rate on energy weapons?”

She began thoughtfully, “I have decent accuracy. I’ve handled Cardassian rifles, of course, as well as Klingon, Breen, Lissepian... a few that I have no idea where they came from.”

“So if you rate below a type-three phaser rifle, I’ll be disappointed.” He teased.

She laughed, finally beginning to loosen up. “I promise, I won’t. Actually, I _have_ used Starfleet phasers, too.”

He felt his brow crease, “Where did you get Starfleet weaponry?”

She smiled and shrugged slyly, “It wasn’t my department.”

He made a mental note to look into that later. “I guess that’s acceptable. I assume you’ve handled explosives.”

“Of course. We had to use whatever we could get our hands on: thermolyte, argine/sorium, mooride polyronite b, bilitrium, ultritium resin, cabrodine/infernite, nitrilin micro-explosives, there was once an improvised grenade made out of a plasma infuser and a neurolytic restraint …” She laughed self-consciously, “To name a few.”

He whistled, “And you still have your hearing?” He asked, only partly joking.

“Actually, I’ve had to have some auditory restoration done, but nothing too bad.” She tried to hide it, but a smile turned up the corners of her mouth.

“Is something funny about that?”

She looked embarrassed, “Your question just made me think of something.”

“Go on.”

“Back then,” she began hesitantly, “a couple of us decided to mess with our leader to make him think there was something wrong with his hearing. We decided to mouth words to each other in front of him as though we were talking, but with no sound.”

Baker couldn’t help a chuckle.

She laughed more openly now, “The best part was that _everybody_ else picked up on it and kept it going for something like half an hour.”

“Sounds like an interesting group.”

“It was.” She said with a hint of sadness. “We cared a great deal for each other. Still do.”

Still working to steer the conversation, he asked, “I’m curious, how was the command structure organized?”

“Seniority mostly. We had people of all ages with different levels of experience, so seniority was the most reasonable way to do it. Which meant I was on the bottom of the stack for the first two years. But after the massacres…” she began, but he interrupted.

“‘Massacres’?”

She shook her head, realizing he didn’t know what she was talking about. “They’re known as the Joralla Massacres. The Cardassians nearly wiped out all Resistance in the province. My cell was reduced to five people.” Her tone betrayed none of the horror those few sentences communicated.

“I’m sorry.”

She waved off his sympathy, “As we began to rebuild I found myself training people twice my age. Suddenly I was giving orders,” she shook her head, “making life and death decisions for them. It was surreal, at the very least.”

So, she had experience in training recruits as well as in command. He probed a bit further. “Do you see yourself in a command position again in the future?”

She shrugged. “Whatever path my life takes is what I’ll do. All I want is to safeguard the lives of people who can’t defend themselves. To pursue justice wherever I can. What form that takes in my life doesn’t matter. Whether I’m one of a thousand soldiers or in a leadership position, I’ll do whatever I’m called on to do.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond. He flashed back to when he was twenty-one-years-old, he would have been lucky to have such conviction. To be so focused and have such a profound understanding of his own purpose. It certainly would have saved him a lot of trouble. He decided to get to the point of this meeting. “Since you won’t be taking any of the UHC classes, you’ll need to make up those credits somehow.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” 

“Actually, I was hoping you’d be interested in working for me.” Her eyebrows shot up, but he continued before she could say anything. “You have a knack for fighting techniques that are… outside of Starfleet Training. I could use an instructor like that.”

“You want me to teach cadets how to fight dirty?” She said with a laugh.

He joined her with a short laugh of his own. “No, I want you to teach them how to defend themselves when their opponent is fighting dirty. Especially with war on the horizon with either the Klingons or the Dominion, not to mention a host of other organizations that don’t share our war-time ethics. I think understanding these non-Starfleet tactics could be the difference between life and death for our security officers.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand, and agree completely. But I can’t teach a class. I just got here!”

“Ah, but you said yourself that you’ve trained others in the past. And we’d start you off with some nice compliant first-year cadets.”

“‘Compliant first year cadets’?!”

“Present company excluded, of course. Besides, it would get you those credits you need, and I’d owe you a favor.”

She pursed her lips for a moment, hesitating. “I guess I don’t have any more excuses.”

“Perfect. I’ll have everything set up for you by the time classes start next week.”

* * *

Maggie balanced a stack of padds in the crook of one arm and maneuvered the strap of her bag back onto her other shoulder after it had slipped down. She slowly walked the length of the seventh-floor dormitory hallway, watching for a door with her name next to it. Other cadets brushed past her on their way to or from something.

She’d arrived two weeks late for the start of classes because she’d been on the USS Archer with her father until it rendezvoused with the Honshu on its way back to Earth. At least she was able to get started on the classwork en-route so she wasn’t behind, but this meant that everyone else had already settled in when she was just now arriving. It didn’t help matters that she’d been picked as one of the team leaders for a group project already. ‘Hit the ground running’ was an understatement.

Finally, she found it: Margret Capshaw/Norvish Keedra

Maggie wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or terrified about being roommates with a non-Human. She’d been around non-Humans all her life, so wasn’t worried about that. The problem was she felt clumsy enough around her own people, throw in some cultural differences along with her innate social awkwardness and she was bound to spend a good part of the next year in complete mortification.

Add to that that Cadet Norvish was already a bit infamous around Academy campus. Maggie had heard that she’d actually _turned down_ an offer to join Red Squad. _Red Squad!_

Needless to say, Maggie was nervous. She reminded herself that Cadet Norvish had worked hard to be here, she _wanted_ to be here as much as the rest of them, she wasn’t necessarily going to be hard to get along with. And Maggie had done her homework, researching as much as she could about her culture.

She took a deep breath and pushed the door open before she could change her mind and crossed the threshold. Inside, one side of the room sat empty, the bed neatly made without a single wrinkle. On the other bed she found her new roommate, propped up against the headboard, reading from a padd. To Maggie’s relief, she looked up and smiled warmly.

Maggie dumped her stuff onto the empty bed and turned to greet her. “I’m Maggie.” She said, holding out her right hand.

“Kee.” She said, reaching up to grasp her hand.

“‘Kee.’” She repeated, “I’m guessing that’s short for Keedra?”

Kee raised her palms toward Maggie, “You cracked the code.” She said with a quirky smile.

Maggie felt her cheeks flush, she was _not_ good at this. “Um… well I don’t mean to interrupt your reading.”

Kee picked up the padd again with a sigh, “No, please do. It’s ‘A Brief Account of Andorian History’.” She said flatly.

Maggie smiled, remembering that book. “I remember reading that quite a few years ago.” She turned away to start unpacking her bag. “I had to reread sections over and over because my mind would wander even while my eyes kept moving.”

Kee laughed, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” She tipped her head back to lean it against the wall behind her. “And I have five more of these for Vulcan, Benzite, Betazoid, Tellerite and Bolian histories that I have to finish in the next month.”

Maggie could only shake her head. She at least had never had to read them all in one set, having them, and others, spaced out over her entire childhood. “There must be some way to get through it all.”

“I tried reading it in Federation Standard instead of my native language to see if that would force me to focus, but it was going way too slow.” She shook her head in defeat, “I’ll just have to slog through.”

“How’s that going? Learning _standard,_ I mean.”

“Speaking it is one thing, learning to read it has been a challenge. It’s very different than what I’m used to. But I have enough of it down to be able to get by for now.”

“I’ve always wanted to learn Klingon.” Maggie shared.

“I thought about doing Klingon next.” She paused, “You know, besides just the curses.” She said with a laugh.

Maggie finished unpacking her things and sat down on the bed, still thinking about the group project. She’d heard that Kee had turned down requests to join other teams three times already. If Maggie asked and she said no, that would make this roommate arrangement that much more awkward. But if she said yes… “You’re in Admiral Namimby’s ethics class this quarter, right?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you turned down the other teams for the group project?”

She shrugged, “I didn’t feel like their motives and mine were compatible. They seem to be driven by ambition and a desire to be noticed by their superiors.”

That seemed like a strange thing to hear from a Starfleet cadet. “And you’re not?”

Kee leaned forward crisscrossing her legs and put her elbows on her knees. “I’m not out to make a name for myself. I just want to do my job.”

“Is what why you turned down Red Squad?”

Kee’s eyebrows arched and she sat back, “You know about that?”

Maggie laughed, “I think _everyone_ knows about that. They were pretty miffed.”

Color filled her cheeks and Maggie assumed that meant the same thing for Bajorans as it did for Humans. “Yes, that’s exactly why. They strike me as arrogant and pompous, and I don’t want to be part of their clique.”

“‘Clique’? It’s an elite group overseen by officers.” Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Kee concealed a smile by pursing her lips. “Yeah… I’ll keep my opinions about _that_ to myself.”

Maggie couldn’t help but laugh and desperately hope that she could get this person on her team. “Ok, so I can guarantee that I’m not motivated by ambition, and I don’t _think_ I’m arrogant and pompous. I just really, really want to get a good grade.” Maggie paused, and when Kee didn’t disagree she continued, “I’d love to have you on my team.”

Kee held her gaze for a moment, her pale green eyes steady and thoughtful. Finally, the corners of her lips curled slightly, “Sure, I’ll join your team.”

Maggie resisted the urge to run out to the hallway and exclaim to everyone present that she’d beaten out Red Squad. “Great! I think we’re going to have a great team. I already have Loren Dales, and I’ve also been talking to Jack Higgins and Lweha Esaivex. I’m sure they’ll be onboard as soon as I tell them we have _you_.” Whether Kee was out to make a name for herself or not, she already had and while Maggie had been truthful about that not being her primary goal, having her on the team would certainly make a few things easier. “If you’d like an excuse to take a break from your reading, I’m supposed to meet up with Loren in a few minutes. I’d be happy to introduce you to him.”

“Sure.” She said and together they stood and headed down the hallway toward the gym. “He’s on the gymnastics team.” She told Kee, “Apparently he’s won some awards for the horizontal bar or something like that.”

* * *

Kee puzzled over what a ‘horizontal bar’ was as she walked with Maggie to the gym. They continued down to the other end of the building that she didn’t often frequent. When they walked in, a cadet that Kee didn’t know was up on the bars flipping and swinging and twisting in ways that made her feel dizzy just watching. He dismounted the bar, flipping in the air and landed on his feet. “I take it _that’s_ the horizontal bar?”

“Yep.” Maggie confirmed just as she waved to someone standing on the sidelines cheering his teammate on and she led Kee over to him.

The man was wearing a black and Starfleet-red gymnast uniform that revealed some well-defined muscles that Kee couldn’t help but appreciate. She did her best to hide the licentious smile that threatened to creep up the corners of her lips. When they came near he turned and greeted Maggie, “Hey, Maggie! It’s good to finally meet you in person.”

“Loren, I wanted you to meet Norvish Keedra, she’s agreed to join our team.”

Only partially recovered, Kee put her hand out to shake his, already used to the Human custom. “Call me Kee.”

He grasped her hand, “Kee. I’m Loren.” Then he put on a smile that threatened to turn her to giggles. Kee squashed the urge and put on her best pleasantly neutral face while Maggie to led the way to the cadet lounge. Maggie and Loren chatted about their plans for the project which involved an analysis of one of several cross-cultural incidents encountered by Starfleet ships. The two of them seemed so enthusiastic. It was so very, very Starfleet, and Kee enjoyed every minute of it.

The small group sat in the lounge for some time chatting about the project without digging too deeply into it quite yet. After a while, Maggie left to track down the other two people she wanted to bring onto the team, leaving Kee and Loren alone.

Kee slipped her boots off and tucked her feet under her during an awkward silence.

“You’re security, right?” He asked as though he couldn’t think of anything else.

Kee knew the feeling. After all the years that she’d handled anything and everything that came her way, it was rare that anyone could make her this flustered. “Yeah, how’d you guess?”

“Between the gold shoulders and the fact that you don’t _talk_ like an engineer.” He said with a nervous laugh. “Besides, your score on the UHC puts you squarely in the security division.”

“You know about that?”

“Everybody does. You’re a bit of a celebrity already.”

Kee’s jaw dropped, first Red Squad’s big mouths now this too. “I guess I’ve been so focused on my work that I didn’t realize.” Her burning cheeks encouraged her to change the subject away from herself. “So, uh, what’s your focus?”

“I want to be a pilot… well… I _am_ a pilot. I want to pilot a starship.” The way he tripped over his own words made Kee relax a tiny bit.

“You’ve been doing it for a while?”

“Ever since they would let me.” He said, beginning to recover his confidence. “My first flight was when I was ten, but I was doing the Flotter Flight Simulator in the holodeck as far back as I can remember.”

Kee laughed, “I have no idea what that is.”

He joined in, “It doesn’t matter.”

When their laughter had died down there was another awkward silence that ended with a notification sound from her padd. She glanced at it to see that she’d received a message from Cadda.

“Do you need to take care of that?” He asked.

“It’s just a message from a friend of mine. She’s a musician. Probably telling me how her latest concert went.”

“What kind of music is it?”

Kee hesitated, “It’s not the kind of music that comes to mind when most people think of Bajoran music. Not the cultivated music that sophisticated people represent as our culture. It’s raw, coarse, visceral… _loud_. I’ve heard it compared to Earth classical punk.”

“That sounds interesting.” He said, leaning back in his chair.

“Years ago she found this _aju_ … it’s a seven-stringed instrument, electric, requires an amp… anyway, she found one in a junk pile and just had to have it. It was completely inoperable, but she eventually managed to get it working. Then she picked at the thing _incessantly_ for the next few months until it started making the sounds she wanted it to make. After that she wrote a few songs, somebody made an amateur recording of a couple of them and they got passed from person to person within the Resistance. By the time the Cardassians withdrew, she was fairly well-known. Eventually she put a band together.”

Loren smiled, “Maybe you could play it for us some time.”

“Sure.” Kee searched for anything else to say. She wanted to keep him talking but had so little in common with him, with anyone here, that it was difficult just to have a conversation. Almost anything she could add to the discussion was inevitably linked with her past and, while she certainly didn’t hide it, she didn’t feel like she could share any more than the most basic details. She suddenly missed her friends back home. They understood it all.

“Well, um…” he said, “I have some classwork to finish, I should get going.”

“Sure, I’ll see you later.” After he left, Kee retrieved a cup of coffee from the replicator and settled in to continue her reading. Finally absorbed in the account of Andorian/Vulcan first contact, she found herself holding a cold cup of coffee when someone dropped into the chair across from her. She looked up to see that it was Cadet Tim Watters, again.

“I told you, I’m not joining Red Squad.” She told him, returning her attention to the padd. She was becoming more than a little irritated at his attempts to convince her to join.

“You’re making a mistake.”

She replied without taking her eyes off of the padd even though she wasn’t actually reading it. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me why.”

“Think of how it’ll look on your Starfleet record. Promotions come faster to officers who were members of Red Squad.”

She finally put down her padd. “And I told you that I don’t care about that. I just want to do my job.”

“So, what do you think your _job_ is?” He said in a mocking tone.

“To save lives. No matter my position or rank.”

“Red Squad can help you do that better!” He seemed pleased with himself for making what he thought was an irrefutable point.

“How?” She said, already knowing his answer.

“With real-world training. Special combat simulations.”

She leaned forward with a smirk on her lips, “You do understand I actually _have_ real-world combat experience, don’t you?” She pushed it farther, digging into a dark place inside her and looked straight into his eyes, “I know what it’s like to point a gun at a living being and pull the trigger. Do you? I know what it’s like to slide a knife across your enemy’s throat and watch the life drain from his eyes. Do your _simulations_ teach you that?” She’d meant to shock him into backing down, but he seemed more excited than ever.

“And that’s why we need you! You know what it’s really like!”

“Ah! So now we know the real reason you want me to join you. It’s not for me, it’s for you.”

“I’ll admit that the rest of us would benefit from your involvement.” He leaned across the coffee table that was between them and lowered his voice. “And it would benefit you _not_ to refuse our offer. You’re a first-year cadet, you have a lot of years ahead of you here, things can be very easy for you or very difficult.”

Without meaning to she let out a short burst of laughter, “Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all.” He leaned back in his chair, clearly proud of himself.

She lowered her voice again. “I’ve survived Cardassian torture, _you_ don’t intimidate me.” With that she picked up the padd and tried again to read.

He stood up and towered over her. “This is your last chance, we won’t ask again.”

“Oh please let that be true.” She said, looking up at him with the sweetest smile she could manage. He turned and marched away, shoving another cadet out of the way. Kee sighed and finally, began to read again.


	3. STARFLEET: 2372, YEAR 1

Kee stood around in a dank, musty cavern. Some cadets from the engineering track were working to restore a network of underground tunnels under the city of Seattle. This was not included in the brief Earth history she’d read, so one of the engineers, Eric Morgan, chatted to her about the history of these passages.

She learned that the city was only something like 600 years old, which on Earth was thought of as quite old. At some point in its history the city had suffered some kind of disaster, at which time it was decided to rebuild above the original street level leaving old sidewalks and building fronts facing eerie, underground tunnels. Then, after the damage that occurred during WWIII, the streets were raised once again creating a second set of tunnels.

Over the centuries the soft ground continued to settle and sink, making the passages dangerous and unstable. Since they held historical value, filling them in or demolishing them was not considered an option. So, restoration efforts had to be carried out over and over to maintain the network. That’s where the engineering cadets came in. They were working in the lowest level on removing old restoration equipment to install the new stuff and they’d requested some security cadets to assist them. They had already set up a temporary support system and were currently removing an old 22nd century monitoring unit that used an obsolete uranium power cell. Or so Morgan told her.

Along with the other security cadets Cain and Adachi, Kee helped maneuver heavy items out of an into place, handed tools to the engineers and kept an eye out for safety. Most of that left her mind free to wander. Parts of the tunnels had sunk more than others and there were places where stairs and ladders had to be used where the path had originally been flat. Arched doorways led to abandoned and often collapsed building interiors. She took a moment to appreciate the mason work. It wasn’t elaborate but, unlike modern building methods, each and every brick had been set in place by hand. Every layer of mortar had been spread by a real person long ago.

 _“Hey, we could use a little muscle up here.”_ Hill’s voice came over the comm. She was the other engineer cadet in the upper section with Adachi.

“On our way.” Cain responded and nudged Kee’s shoulder with the back of his hand.

Kee followed him up a steep ramp then a ladder through a small opening to the upper underground level where they found Hill and Adachi waiting next to a large section of the temporary support system. The three security cadets lifted the crisscrossed beams into place while Hill worked underneath to secure the new section to the rest of it. It was heavy and her muscles strained to hold it steady. This was the third one like it today.

“Ok, you can let go.” Hill finally said after what seemed like forever.

Kee and the others let out a collective breath and leaned up against the structure.

“I think she likes to take her sweet time just to make us suffer.” Cain complained.

Hill whistled softly, feigning guilt and pretended to ignore them. The security cadets chuckled and Kee made a move to return to the other group below. Suddenly there was an odd cracking and grinding sound and the floor began to move like it was floating on top of water. Then it buckled on one side and slanted down just as the opening to the lower section collapsed and debris tumbled over it.

The whole thing only took a few seconds. Before the dust had settled, Kee’s hand was already on her commbadge, “Morgan! Woelk! Are you guys ok?” Silence.

As she continued to try to contact them, Hill pulled out a tricorder to scan the section below and Adachi tapped his commbadge to call for help. “This is team five, we have a tunnel collapse in section 5-8-1…”

Morgan finally responded to Kee, _“I’m here.”_ His voice sounded strained like he was injured. _“I’m trapped. Woelk is either unconscious or dead, I can’t tell. And it looks like there’s damage to the unit we were working on.”_

“Stand by, we’ll get you out.” She told him then turned to Hill.

“There’s too much interference to beam them out. If the power cell in that unit was damaged, it’ll be leaking radiation.” Hill studied the readings on her tricorder, but shook her head, “There are some openings in the debris that came down, but nothing big enough for us to fit through. They’re sealed in.”

Cain looked over her shoulder, “What about that one.” He asked, indicating a slightly jagged route that the computer had highlighted.

“It’s less than ten centimeters high!” Hill argued.

“I can fit.” Kee volunteered.

“No, it’s unstable. If it shifts again you’d be crushed.”

“I’ll take the risk.” Kee insisted.

Hill shook her head but turned to grab the emergency med kit, “I don’t like this.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t either.” She assured her. “But we’ve got to get to them.”

Hill reluctantly rummaged around in the med kit for a few moments before holding up a hypospray. “You’ll need a dose of hyronalin before you go down there.” She pressed the hypo to Kee’s neck. “I’ve loaded two more for them.” She snapped the med kit closed.

Kee walked along the rubble and found the opening the tricorder had indicated. Once she had climbed part way inside, she turned and took the med kit from Hill, then slid herself inside. The passageway was rough and irregular, she had to keep twisting her body to squeeze through the gap. Her legs were nearly useless since she couldn’t bend her knees, she could only push herself onward with her hands and scoot her back along a centimeter at a time.

She forced herself to breathe slowly and relax, getting tensed up would only make it harder for her to move. The debris above her was barely beyond the tip of her nose in some places and she fought to ignore the panic that was creeping up her shoulders.

Without warning something shifted above her. Then the entire tangle of rubble moved to the side. Kee held her breath and turned her face away, expecting to be crushed. When it stopped, she opened her eyes, but the passage was too tight even to turn her head back forward. Jagged pieces pressed in around her and there was a sharp pain in her ankle. She moved each of her limbs and torso to test.

 _“Still with us, Norv?”_ Adachi’s voice came over her commbadge.

“Yeah.” She managed to say, “But I think my ankle’s pinned.” When she tried moving her left leg, pain shot up from her ankle. Steeling herself against the pain, she wiggled her foot back and forth until it seemed to make some progress. “I think I can get it.” She continued the movement even as she felt something sharp cutting across the front of her foot. Some pained sounds escaped as she worked, but she kept going. Finally, her leg was free and the pain diminished slightly. She continued shuffling her way downward. “I’m moving forward again.”

 _“It’s tighter than before, but you’re better off moving forward than coming back.”_ Adachi informed her.

In the even tighter space, unidentifiable rough and sharp things scraped against her back and chest. Finally, her feet emerged into emptiness, then her legs. Once her hips were free, she contorted her lower half until she could find something to brace her heels on and squirmed the rest of her body out. “I’m through.” She said to the open comm, “I see them.” Woelk was lying flat on his face near the old monitoring unit that had been partially crushed by a stone beam. Morgan was conscious, but trapped under a tumble of debris. Kee picked her way down a loose mixture of broken concrete, bricks and twisted metal to reach them.

“Check Woelk first!” Morgan called to her.

Kee pulled out the tricorder from the med kit as she hurried over to him. She knelt down next to him and passed the tricorder’s probe across his body. “He’s alive.” She confirmed with relief. “Took a nasty dose of radiation, but other than that he’s uninjured.” She closed the tricorder and rolled him over onto his back, revealing radiation burns on his face and hands. Kee pressed one of the prepared hyposprays to his neck, then stood up to check Morgan.

“Your ankle!” He exclaimed, pointing to the blood that had soaked through her grey pant leg.

“It’s just a scratch.” She said as she knelt down and began scanning him. “You’ve got a mild concussion, no internal bleeding, right arm’s broken, dislocated hip, a cracked kneecap and a compound fracture of the tibia.” She summarized. “I hate those.” She muttered under her breath while she dosed him with the final hypospray. Then said louder, “The blood loss is very slow, though, so you should be ok for a while longer.”

“We need to get that radiation leak under control. I can walk you through it.” He said weakly.

As Kee moved toward the damaged unit she let out a breath, she’d rather deal with the compound fracture than a piece of machinery. It had been well established during the last six months that she had zero engineering skills. She could repeat what she’d been taught and she understood the basic concepts, but going into unfamiliar technology without any experience was intimidating at the least. “You’re not going to lose consciousness on me, are you?” She called back to him.

“I’ll do my best.” Once she had retrieved the tool kit he began, “First you need to shunt power from the HNS relay to the backup KRL interface, then…”

“Whoa, whoa! Slow down.” She picked up the appropriate tool. She’d completed a basic engineering course so far this year and concentrated on what she’d learned. Morgan started over again and walked her through each step of the process more slowly. Some of the things he had her do didn’t seem to have any purpose until suddenly the entire unit shut down. She picked up the tricorder and scanned it to confirm that the radiation leak had been sealed and the power cell was inactive, but it would still take time for the radiation to dissipate enough to be transported out.

As she moved back over to Morgan she took a peek at Woelk, he was breathing but hadn’t begun to wake. Kee scanned Morgan with the medical tricorder again to confirm he had not worsened. “Hill, is this wall stable enough for me to move the debris off of him?” She asked.

_“It is for now, but I’ll keep an active scan on it as you go.”_

Kee began pulling pieces off of the pile, watching the rest of it for movement as well as Morgan’s face for pain. She cleared away everything on top of a large chunk of concrete, which looked like it was the main culprit holding him in place. Pressing her back against it and gripping the lower edge with her fingers she told him, “This is probably going to hurt.” At his nod, she lifted with her legs and raised it just a few centimeters.

Morgan grunted painfully, but slid himself out from under before her strength gave out and she allowed it to drop with a thud. The compound fracture was visible now and Kee bent down to tear his pant leg away from it, avoiding the gruesome injury as best she could. She opened up the med kit again and inserted a vile into the hypospray that would sanitize the wound and reduce the pain. She injected it into his leg just above the break, then wrapped it with a compression splint and pulled a second splint out of the kit. “I can’t do anything about your hip.” She said by way of an apology as she wrapped his arm.

“It’s alright. I’m grateful for your help.”

“Just doing my job.” She smiled at him, then returned to Woelk who had begun to stir.

He finally opened his eyes, “What happened?”

“This part of the tunnels collapsed and you caught some radiation when the unit was damaged. But you’ll be alright.” She looked up at the crumbling and deformed ceiling. “As long as this place doesn’t come down on us before they can beam us out.”

Woelk sat up and continued to blink himself back into consciousness.

“Any idea how long it’ll take for the radiation to dissipate?” Kee asked the engineers.

“Maybe be a couple of hours.” Morgan said.

Kee sighed. _A couple of hours… could be worse._ Then she noticed it was worse. Water was seeping up from the bottom slope of the hill. “Guys, there’s water coming in!” She called through the comm as she knelt down to prepare to pull Morgan away.

After a long pause, Hill responded. _“The tide’s coming in. Looks like the tunnel slipped below the tideline, you’d better get to higher ground.”_ Hill said.

“How high is it going to get?”

_“You’ll need to move about five meters up in elevation.”_

Kee peered straight up then up the hill, estimating a triangle. Five meters up would be fifteen-point-four meters up the hill, a hard climb in Morgan’s condition, but the water was coming in fast. “Come on, let’s go.” She said, hoisting his arm over her shoulder and lifting him to his feet.

Woelk pushed himself up off the ground and shuffled uphill ahead of her. She waited while he clambered slowly across the rubble, then lifted and supported Morgan as he limped painfully across. They reached a smooth place and ambled along to another length of ruins. Woelk started to climb but Morgan stopped. “I can’t do it again.”

“You have to.” Kee said gently. “We need to get above the tideline.”

He let go of her shoulder and slid down to sit on the floor. “I can’t do this.” He repeated, “It hurts so bad, I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

Kee nodded to Woelk to keep going then sat down next to him and thought about pointing out that the water coming toward them was salt water and it would hurt a lot worse when it reached his leg, but decided on a different tactic. “I wonder why this ground is so unstable.” She mused.

The engineer in him got the better of him, “A lot of the city was built on unstable fill. They’ve had problems with slides for centuries.”

“Oh yeah?” Kee maneuvered herself under his left side again and hauled him back to his feet. “It’s a wonder the buildings are still standing.”

“Ever since the early 22nd century all new buildings were required to have titanium-reinforced foundations that reach all the way to the bedrock.” He told her as they began their ascent again. “The current streets are supported independently, too. The whole hillside could slip away into the sound and it would all be left still standing.” He continued to describe the details of building structures and the numerous earthquakes to hit the region over the years. After a while it became harder and harder for him to both talk and climb. Eventually he fell silent except for strained grunts of exertion or pain.

Finally, Hill’s voice came over the comm again, _“You’re high enough.”_

Kee laid Morgan down gently then straightened up to stretch her back. Woelk had essentially collapsed, exhausted from residual radiation sickness.

Morgan rolled onto his back, “I don’t have that kind and a lot to be a great way.” He mumbled to no one in particular.

Kee immediately pulled out the tricorder and passed the probe over his head. “That’s what head trauma sounds like.” She muttered to herself while waiting for the results. A moment later the tricorder confirmed her suspicions, his concussion was worse than it had looked initially. “Hill, are you making progress up there?”

_“Stand by.”_

‘Stand by’ was not what she wanted to hear. She had one engineer with radiation burns, one with head trauma and numerous broken bones, and a tunnel that could slide again at any moment. She could not _stand by_. She began pacing. The ceiling here was a lot higher than in other places, suggesting that while the floor had slipped, the ceiling had not.

_“Norv, we have a shuttle in place over you, they’re going to use a tractor beam to stabilize the upper tunnel while we dig down to you.”_

“Confirmed.” She said with relief and pulled out the tricorder again to estimate where they might break through. It looked like they were working on a section that had crumbled in a previous slide and was likely more stable than the rest of it. Kee looked around for something to climb on. She spotted a large piece of intact masonry and maneuvered it into place directly under the place the rescuers would emerge. Climbing on top of the wobbly brickwork with her heart pounding she reached up and began pulling away pieces of debris, checking with her tricorder from time to time to ensure she wasn’t making matters worse.

She had created a substantial pile when she began to see light coming through. A few more minutes of digging and she could feel fresh air on her face, then one last chunk of stone was pulled aside and a bright light shined in her eyes.

“Back up, we’re sending something through.” A voice she didn’t recognize called to her.

As soon as she backed down onto the floor a rescue basket was pushed through the opening. Kee went to Morgan, who was completely delirious at that point, but she lugged him up over her shoulder and maneuvered him down into the basket. “He’s ready!” She called, then guided it as it was pulled back into the opening.

The basket returned and she helped Woelk into it. As she watched him disappear into the opening she breathed a heavy sigh and rubbed her face with dirty hands before following him through.


	4. STARFLEET: 2372, YEAR 1

“No! Absolutely not!” Kee shouted at her mother through the comm while Maggie did her best not to eavesdrop.

“What do you mean ‘no’? This is not a debate, Keedra.” Her mother said, “You have to come home.”

“I’m staying. Period.”

There was a long pause, Maggie hadn’t been able to follow much of what they were talking about. Not that she was eavesdropping. Finally, Kee’s mother spoke again in that ‘mom’ voice, “Keedra, this is not a request, it’s not optional. This is a direct order from the Emissary.”

“ _Tus_ the Emissary!”

Kee’s mother gasped loud enough for Maggie to hear, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Kee pointed at her mother’s image on the screen, “You don’t like this any more than I do!”

“I’m _already_ obeying our d’jarra.”

“You don’t want to be stuck doing that for the rest of your life. I know you don’t.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore now, does it?”

“Yes! It does!”

“I expect you to be home within the month.” After that Maggie heard the transmission blink off.

Kee picked up the nearest padd and threw it across the room where it shattered against the wall. “Sorry.” She took a few breaths, “I think it was mine.” She said then buried her face in her hands.

Maggie had witnessed a few arguments between Kee and her mother, but none this heated. She wasn’t even quite sure what was going on. She rolled the desk chair she was sitting on nearer to Kee.

When Kee raised her head she looked decidedly less certain than she had a moment ago. “I don’t want to resign. I don’t want to go home. But I’ll have to.”

“Why?” Maggie said as gently as she could.

Kee explained something about a religious figure who had stepped down and the new person to take the position was ordering Bajor to return to some discriminatory cast system.

“And that means you have to give up everything you’ve worked for?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“So, what happens if you don’t go?”

Kee took a deep breath and pursed her lips, “Exile.”

Maggie watched emotions fight for expression on her face. The absurdity of it. Kee had worked so hard to be here, and continued to work a lot harder than the rest of them had to. For all of that to be thrown away because some self-righteous religious leader decided to implement some old tradition? Maggie stood up, defiance on her friend’s behalf bubbling to the surface. “They have no right to make you do this! They can’t force you!”

Kee looked up at her with a small but amused smile, “That’s a very Human thing to say.”

Maggie could see she wasn’t helping the matter, so she let it drop. “I’m sorry. How much time do you have to make your decision?”

“I’m not sure, it depends on how fast things on Bajor develop.”

* * *

The next week or so passed in a fog. Kee’s thoughts wavered between the two options in front of her: return home forever to a life that she couldn’t bear or never return at all. Commander Baker had offered her time off, but the last thing she needed was _more_ time to fret about it. Her salvation had come when the true Emissary had reasserted himself and assured her people that the Prophets had no intention of forcing them to return to their d’jarras. A huge weight had been immediately lifted.

When Maggie heard the news she gleefully pulled out a bottle of nail polish to ‘celebrate’. She was so sweet about it that Kee complied and currently had her fingers spread out on a desktop in front of her. “You do understand that I have to take this off in the morning.”

“Why?” She said with a disappointed furrow to her brow.

Kee had to remind herself not to gesture with her hands. “I’m in security… do you know what the other cadets would say if I show up to class with _pink sparkly_ nail polish?” She said with a laugh. “I’d never live it down!”

Maggie giggled and nodded. “I guess you’re right.” Kee watched her carefully apply the color to her fingers. It looked strange on her short clipped nails and felt even stranger. When Maggie spoke again her voice was soft. “You were talking in your sleep again last night.”

Kee felt her back stiffen immediately. What had she been dreaming about?

Blood poured over her hand from his neck wound. “I’m sorry.” She sobbed… Her hands were shackled to a cable attached to a spike sunk into the ground… Rain soaked through her clothes and dripped off the tip of her nose… She ducked her head as explosions showered shrapnel and fire over her… Someone grabbed her shoulders….

She shook the memory out of her mind. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t bother you.”

“No. It’s ok. It’s just that you said something about someone named Nin?”

“He was one of the others who had joined the resistance with me.” Kee stared at her fingers as the memory forced its way to her attention.

She and Nin had been sent to the outskirts of one of the towns to meet a contact for supplies. She felt so vulnerable without the others, without Ren. She hadn’t been far from his side for more than a few minutes during the last year. Before they could get to their meeting place a Cardassian patrol had come upon them. She found out later that their scattering field had malfunctioned and they showed up on sensors. They’d tried telling the Cardassians that they were just kids that had gotten lost, but their phaser rifles told a different story. A thumbscan gave away their identities anyway.

Kee stood facing Nin. Each of them was being held in place by a Cardassian soldier while several others spoke in a small cluster a short distance away. As they walked back to them, one of them, the glinn, looked both of them over and motioned to Nin, “We won’t need that one.”

Immediately the soldier holding Nin pulled a knife out of his armor and slid it across Nin’s neck.

“No!” Kee screamed as Nin fell to the ground. She wrestled herself from the grasp of the one holding her and rushed to Nin’s side. She covered the wound on his neck with her hand, trying to stop the bleeding, but blood poured between her fingers. His blood felt hot on her cold hand and it came in pulses. His mouth gaped and his eyes were wide but still focused. “No.” she repeated between sobs. His eyes began to glaze over. “I’m sorry.” The blood began to slow down. “I’m sorry.” She repeated. His body went limp and his eyes fixed. She felt two more weak heartbeats, then nothing.

The Cardassians didn’t give her a chance to weep, they grabbed her and roughly pulled her away. As her tears flowed they bound her wrists in front of her and shoved her away from the scene. One of them behind her asked his superior, “Sir, should we dispose of the body?”

“No, the wild animals will take care of it.” He said indifferently.

As they marched her through the forest, one of them turned to him, “What shall we do with this one after we’re done with her? Take her to the training facility?” He asked, referring to the place where they took girls her age to be trained to become comfort women.

The glinn considered it for a moment, “No, she’s likely been ruined by the rebels, she’d never be able to be retrained.”

“To the other facility, then?”

She knew what “other” facility he was talking about. The one where they sometimes sent female resistance fighters who’d been captured to be locked up and made available to any Cardassian soldier. She’d die before going there.

The glinn nodded, “If she survives, you can take her there yourself.”

The one who’d made the suggestion turned and gave her a sickening smile that turned her stomach. They marched her through the forest to a clearing that was partially surrounded by a rocky bluff and lead her to the middle of the clearing. One of them pounded a spike into the ground in front of her then attached one end of a short cable to it. They forced her to her knees and attached the other end of the cable to the manacles on her wrists, then backed away and disappeared into the forest.

They’d laid a trap and she was the bait.

She’d knelt there for hours, desperately hoping that her colleagues wouldn’t fall for it. All the while knowing that Ren would risk everything to save her, and that scared her more than anything. It began to rain and after a while her clothes were completely soaked. She shivered and water ran down her ridges and dripped off of the tip of her nose. At least the rain was washing some of Nin’s blood off of her hands. Through the sound of the rain she heard the faintest noise that told her they’d come for her.

The Cardassians knew it too because she heard the glinn call out, “Ren Larno, we have weapons trained on the girl, step into the clearing.”

She wanted to scream at him to stay away, but soon she saw a pair of boots some distance in front of her and she knew exactly who those boots belonged to. She didn’t trust herself to look at him, was certain that if she did, she’d fall apart.

What the Cardassians didn’t know was that Ren and the others weren’t alone. And that they had recently acquired a member who was an excellent sharpshooter who was already perched up in a tree.

Phaser fire lanced through the air high above her head, hitting a target up on the ridge. Immediately more phasers shot out from the underbrush and grenades exploded across the edge of the ridge. She ducked her head to shield herself from the blasts. Suddenly Ren was at her side with his hands on her shoulders. He pulled a pair of wire cutters from his pocket to cut the cable and they ran back into the safety of the forest.

“It sounded like you were apologizing to him?” Maggie’s voice pulled her back to the present. When Kee didn’t say anything she backpedaled, “I’m sorry, if you don’t want to talk about it…”

“It was my fault he was there in the first place.” She admitted. “Nin and the others were willing to go to the safe house after we were rescued, but I convinced them to refuse. Talked them into joining. If I hadn’t, they’d still be alive.” Her throat tightened, remembering going to their families after the Withdrawal to tell them what had happened. She quickly stuffed the pain back down where it had come from and took a cleansing breath while testing the polish with her fingertips. “We should go, the others are probably already downstairs waiting for us.”

* * *

Loren waited with Lweha and Jack in the lobby of the dorm complex. Something had been a bit off with Kee lately, and Maggie’s sudden suggestion for the friends to gather had him a little worried. Before he could puzzle further over it, Kee and Maggie finally emerged from the turbolift. “Sorry! _Someone_ decided she needed to do this.” Kee said, showing them her painted fingernails.

“No problem, we’re not in a hurry.” Lweha assured her as he and Jack chuckled at the site of the pink sparkles.

It was rare to see Kee out of uniform, even when working out she usually wore the standard-issue apparel and her hair was always pulled back into a pony-tail or a bun. This evening, though her hair fell softly around her face and shoulders and the sparkle of an earring peeked out to the right of her face. Instead of a uniform she wore a formfitting wine-colored tank top with a sheer, off-white open cardigan that draped delicately over the curves of her body. Most surprisingly she wore a black skirt. He was certain he’d never seen her in a skirt before and his eyes traced the curve of her smooth legs.

Lweha raised a disapproving eyebrow at him and he turned away, trying to make it appear that he hadn’t been looking. There was no fooling a Betazoid, though.

Together the five of them walked the short distance to the transporter hub. Kee offered to use her transport credits for all of them since she rarely left campus. Always studying or training, she never seemed to take a break. As far as he could tell, the only time she took off was with them.

At the coffee shop they placed their orders and sat in a semicircle of stuffed chairs. Kee slipped off her shoes and tucked one foot under her and propped the other on the coffee table in front of them, sitting in the way she seemed to prefer. They talked about their plans for the semester break. Maggie, Jack and himself planned to go home to visit their families. He was looking forward to seeing what his parents had done to their house since going into semi-retirement. No doubt, they’d put him to work on some project. Allison planned a ski trip at a resort in Antarctica with some of the other cadets from the science division.

Kee sipped her coffee and observed silently. The break wouldn’t be long enough for her to go home. Loren and the others had grown up immersed in the Starfleet culture. To them, practically all of Federation territory could be considered ‘home’, but the way Kee talked about Bajor made it clear that she missed it terribly. That is, when they could actually coerce her into talking about personal things. She was always so guarded about what she shared, so vague. He guessed he might be too if he’d had the kind of history she did.

Maggie, Jack and Lweha got into an intense discussion over the latest developments in nanotechnology, giving Loren a chance to chat with Kee. Whatever had been weighing on her mind for the past week seemed to be gone. He wondered what it had been but if she didn’t volunteer the information, he wouldn’t pry. But it turned out that he didn’t have to anyway.

“I know I’ve been a bit on edge lately.” She said to him.

“I hadn’t noticed.” He chided her.

“Oh, really?” She joked, “I should learn to wear my emotions on my sleeve more?” She gave him a brief overview of some kind of cast system that would have forced her to leave Starfleet and go home.

“I can see why that would have put you in a difficult position.” He said.

“What’s that expression? ‘A rock and a hard place.’” Kee nodded with a half-smile, “That pretty much sums up my life.”

“So, if this cast system had never been abolished in the first place, you would have been out on a boat fishing right now?”

Kee laughed at the absurdity, “No. No, under the d’jarra system my parents would have never been allowed to be together. I wouldn’t exist. My father belonged to the engineering class.”

Jack must have been eavesdropping because he let out a noticeable snort.

Kee pointed at him in mock offence, “You! Don’t laugh.” Everyone knew that Kee struggled with engineering concepts. Jack had spent a good deal of time working together with her on it. Although ‘struggle’ was a relative term, he’d seen her scores and they appeared to be on par with others in the security division.

“How’d they end up together, then?” Loren asked.

“My father and uncle were on track to become software engineers when the universities were closed down. Around that same time Bajorans were banned from all of those types of jobs and their family went to the refugee camp where my mother and her family also ended up when their house was seized.”

That was suddenly a lot of personal information, possibly more than she’d ever shared in the previous six months. He wasn’t sure how to respond. “Oh, that sounds tough.”

She seemed suddenly flustered. “I’m sorry, that was probably more information than you were expecting.”

“No, it’s alright.” He wanted to know more about her, but could never figure out how to get her to open up. She seemed uncomfortable, so he changed the subject. “I, uh, almost didn’t recognize you with your hair down.”

Kee laughed self-consciously, “That’s what happens when I let Maggie dress me.” She smiled over at her friend, “She’s just so persistent.”

“I think she did a good job.”

“Thanks.” Another self-conscious laugh. “It just all seems a little silly. Putting so much thought and effort into the way you dress or wear your hair. Before the Withdrawal, I don’t think I ever owned more than one set of clothes at any given time. Growing up, as soon as one kid got too big, their clothes would be passed on to someone younger.”

“I guess from that perspective we must seem a bit spoiled.”

“‘Spoiled’, no.” She said thoughtfully, “Just… privileged.”

“I guess that’s ok.”

Kee smiled wistfully, “And now there’s a whole new generation of children on Bajor who get to grow up privileged, too. Never knowing the Occupation.”

“Thanks to people like you.”

She scoffed, “Nah. We just blew stuff up once in a while.”

Loren laughed.

“It’s actually pretty awesome, you should try it sometime.”

“Blowing stuff up?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I’ll leave that to the security division.” He said. 

After a long moment, Jack jumped in and changed the subject. “So, Kee, what’s with the tattoo?” They all knew she had some kind of tattoo on her back for which she’d gotten special exemption from the uniform code. No one knew why, though.

“Yes, I have a tattoo.” Kee said flatly, making it clear that that was all they were going to get about it.

“Did it hurt? To get it done?” Jack asked.

Kee raised her eyebrows at him with a look that gave him the answer. “No, it was brushed on by butterflies.”

Loren, Maggie and Lweha burst into laughter and Jack gave a sheepish snicker. Kee only sipped her coffee with a lopsided smirk.


	5. STARFLEET: 2373, YEAR 2

Kee laid her wet uniform across a rock with the others. She and five other security cadets had been dropped off in the middle of some North American forest. It was pouring rain and they had managed to build a shelter, but not before getting completely drenched in the process. Now they could only wait by the fire in their underwear for their uniforms to dry.

This was one of the few training exercises they’d have before being sent off to their sophomore year field studies. Leaning back against a tree trunk that formed one side of their shelter, she pulled out a field ration pack and flexed it back and forth a few times to break up the contents before ripping open the package.

The others opened their packs and took their first bite, almost in unison. Currie grimaced and forced himself to swallow the first bite. “Starfleet’s existed since the mid 2100’s, you’d think by now they’d have made these things taste better.” The others, Behan, Partan, Bischoff and Zh'sheris murmured their agreement.

Kee just chuckled to herself and picked another chunk to eat.

“Doesn’t seem to be bothering Kee.” Bischoff pointed out.

Kee shrugged. “I’ve had worse. Just don’t ever try Bolian rations.” She warned them.

The other cadets ate their rations quickly in silence while Kee continued to pick at hers, listening to the sound of the rain. Zh’shris finally broke the silence. “Has everybody received orders for sophomore year field studies?”

“Starbase 157.” Currie said.

“USS Biko.” Partan said.

“USS Hornet.” Bischoff said.

“Deep Space Two.” Behan said.

“USS Concord.” Zh’shris said.

“USS Aleo.” Kee said last. She’d heard Captain Furen could be hard on cadets, but she was determined to do her job with precision and patience. Whether he was impressed with her or not, didn’t matter to her at all.

“So, how ‘d you get the scar?” Partan asked.

Kee realized that she was talking to her and reached down to touch the scar on the outside of her right thigh. “Shrapnel.” She said simply.

Currie leaned back against a log behind him linking his fingers behind his head as though he was reclining in a lounge. Dressed only in a pair of boxers, though, it looked ridiculous. “And…” He waited.

Kee sighed, they were always curious about her past. “There was a Cardassian garrison with a base somewhere in the area, but we couldn’t seem to find them.” She began. “They had these mobile structures, and every time we thought we’d located them, they’d already moved on.” She explained.

“Finally we decided to track one of their patrol units as they returned to their base. We had our biosigns masked, but if we traveled in a group, they still might be able to pick us up, so we were spread out at least twenty meters between each of us.” She emptied the crumbs from her ration packet into her mouth. “Turned out they were dropping proximity mines behind them. Tiny, low-range, only about a five-meter blast radius. One of them went off near me. I was outside of the kill-zone but close enough to catch a piece of shrapnel.”

With her ears ringing from the explosion, it took Kee a moment to figure out what happened. A proximity mine? Suddenly fearful, she looked down to confirm that her body was still intact. The Cardassians would be coming to see what had triggered the blast. She tried to stand up but a piercing pain shot through her leg and she crumpled back onto the ground. When she inspected her leg, she found a piece of sharp, curved metal sticking out of her thigh with blood trickling out around it.

The Cardassians were close enough now that she could hear them. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she slid backward along the ground and wedged herself under a mossy, decomposing log. Before they were within site she peeked down at the device that masked her biosigns to confirm that it was still working and pushed herself as far as she could in the space under the log, gripping her phaser rifle against her chest. Her leg throbbed and she did her best to ignore it, biting her lip to keep herself from crying out.

The Cardassians walked slowly around the area, scanning with their tricorders. Finally, one of them said, “Looks like it was a hara. Just big enough to trip the sensors.”

“Dumb animals.” The other muttered and they turned back to rejoin their group.

When she was sure they were out of earshot, Kee slid out of her hiding place, dragging her aching leg behind her. Then she reached down and prepared to pull out the piece of metal. Knowing that the pain would increase as soon as she touched it, her hand hovered over it, willing herself to do what she knew she needed to do. Finally, she held her breath and gritted her teeth and grabbed the shard and pulled. A tiny squeal escaped her throat as she pulled to free it. Jagged edges ripped her already damaged tissue as it came out. The metal was twisted and sharp and covered in blood.

She dropped the piece of metal on the ground and quickly pressed the heel of her hand hard against the wound which was now bleeding freely. With her free hand she pulled a couple of pieces of cloth out of her pack. She wadded one of them up and pressed it hard against the injury and the other she wrapped around her leg and tied as tight as she could.  
She was already falling behind the others who she knew wouldn’t stop and wait for her. And since they were on comm silence, her only option was to keep going. So, she pushed herself up onto her knees, then her feet and forced herself to move forward, using trees, rocks and logs to support her as she went.

“We tracked the Cardassians for two more days, moving through the forest, slogging through wetlands.” Kee shrugged, “You can imagine, it got infected. But I couldn’t stop or they’d never be able to find me. After a while, the infection moved into my bloodstream and I became septic. But I had no choice, I had to keep up.

“Finally, we reached their mobile base. We surrounded it and attacked from the outside, but by the time the others advanced, I’d already passed out. When I woke up a few hours later, I was inside one of the modules. We had captured the base and my colleagues had come looking for me. Our medic repaired the damage and eliminated the infection, but because the damage had been so severe and it had begun to heal on its own, it left a scar.”

Bischoff held up his little finger and pointed to a tiny line on it. “So, I got this one…”

Kee couldn’t help but laugh with the others. She liked this group. They never showed pity or shock, just accepted her past and ribbed her for who she was now. She listened as Bischoff told an exaggerated tale of how he came to have a tiny scar on his finger.

* * *

Kee proceeded through the Aleo’s corridors, winding her way towards Main Engineering and sidestepping out of the way of officers. When she arrived, she slowed her pace as she looked for the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Sohn. When she’d spotted her she walked over to deliver one of the two padds she was carrying. “Lieutenant, these are the upgrades Lieutenant Schrader is requesting for the torpedo guidance systems.”

“Thank you, Cadet.” She said, taking the padd.

Kee turned away and headed back the way she came, but didn’t return to the security office, going instead to Commander Marshal’s office. While she stood outside the door, waiting for permission to enter, she turned the padd over and over in her hand. Her direct superior, Lieutenant Schrader, had already given his approval to her request, but had sent her up the ladder to the first officer. _“Enter.”_ She heard him say and stepped forward to trigger the door.

“Cadet, what brings you here?” He greeted her from behind his desk.

Kee stepped forward and handed him the formal request, but summarized it for him. “This is a request for a short leave to attend the Federation Cultural Arts Exhibition at the New France colony.”

Marshal’s brow furrowed as he skimmed the padd. “You’ve only been here five weeks, Cadet.”

“Yes, sir, I realize it’s a little unusual to request leave so soon, but, see, Bajor has been invited to participate this year, and a close friend of mine has been selected as one of the musicians.”

“And you’d like to be there.” He finished for her.

“I’d love to see her perform at such a prestigious venue.” She began to worry that he might not be convinced, so she decided to sweeten the deal. “I’ll work double shifts the weeks before _and_ after.”

He looked down at the padd, then, finally, back up at her and smiled. “Request approved. And I would have given it to you for just one week of double shifts.” He added with a half-smile.

“Thank you, sir.” She said, working to keep the grin off her face.

“Dismissed.”

* * *

Kee stepped out of the transporter hub at the New France colony into a crowded courtyard. She was supposed to meet Cadda here, but hadn’t anticipated it being so busy. She was about to ask the computer to locate her when she saw a familiar face coming toward her. Kee maneuvered her way through the crush of people until she reached Cadda.

“Kee!” Cadda exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her.

Kee hugged back.

“I’m glad you were able to come!”

She finally pulled away. “So am I, even if I still have another week of double shifts waiting for me when I get back.” Kee noted that Cadda had changed her hair again. This time it was black with purple streaks that faded into bright red ends.

Cadda took her hand and began leading her through the crowd as if toward something. Just as she was about to ask where they were going, she saw another delightfully familiar face. “Joial!” She nearly screamed over the noise, and wrapped her arms around him for an enthusiastic hug. She hadn’t expected him to be here.

He squeezed her tight and lifted her off her feet for a second, then let go and held her back from him. “You look good.”

“Thanks. How’s the baby?”

“Not much of a baby anymore, he’s walking already.”

“And you haven’t sent me pictures in weeks!”

“I will do that. How’s the… field training… going?”

“Fine. They have me doing a lot of different jobs, but all it does is reinforce my aptitude for security. _But_ , we’re not here to talk about me. This is Cadda’s event.”

“Bah. I just scream into a microphone for a while and people come and listen to it.” With that they continued making their way through the crowd.

* * *

The day after Kee arrived Cadda’s group was scheduled to perform. Kee waited while they were introduced to a notably less raucous crowd than usually attended their concerts. _Humans._ Kee mused. For her part, she cheered loudly as Teji and Ojem took their places on stage, followed by Cadda. Without preamble the music started, blaring loudly in her ears and enhanced with synchronized patterns of light. It was so loud Kee couldn’t even hear her own voice.

She cheered until her voice gave out. The raw, primal emotions the music roused felt good after the strict control of Starfleet. She adored watching Cadda give herself over to the music, fully engrossed in the moment. Kee had a unique understanding of the meanings behind Cadda’s songs: leaving her family, the drugs passed around the interrogation center, having her dignity stripped from her, the heartbreak of loss, the weight of killing. All were shrouded in metaphor but clear to anyone who knew what to look for.

Song after song, Kee lost herself in her friend’s music.

* * *

After the concert, Kee walked with Joial to Cadda’s guest suite where he was staying with the members of the band. He’d been questioning her the whole way about the engineering courses she’d taken. She described in vague detail the things she’d learned, not having ever been very good at techno-speak, but he seemed to understand her imprecise ramblings.

They walked quietly together for a while with his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist. She had to take long strides to keep in step with the man who was a full head taller than her. Finally, he said, “Everybody back home misses you.”

“I miss them too.”

“ _But,_ they’re also ridiculously proud of you.” He said, “And so am I.”

She leaned her head against him as they walked, “You always were one for ridiculousness.”

When they reached their destination, the doors opened to reveal a huge suite with multiple sitting areas a full dining setup, three separate computer consoles, doors leading off to at least six other rooms and a magnificent view of the colony. The whole place was lavishly furnished in Federation style. Kee compared it to the tiny, single room she was staying in. “Woah! I’m in the wrong line of work.” Kee said, marveling at the spacious place, “I should have become a singer.”

Cadda was sitting on one of several couches with her feet up and her head resting against a pillow. “No. No, you’re in just the right line of work.”

“But like to sing.”

“And feel free to do it as much as you like… in private.”

Kee’s mouth gaped before laughing, “You are so mean!” She picked up a pillow from the couch and threw it at her.

As the two women laughed, Joial looked around and asked, “Where are Teji and Ojem?”

“A couple of groupies showed up and convinced them to go to that reception tonight in the main hall.”

“You didn’t want to?” Kee asked.

Cadda sighed and rubbed her face, “No. I am _done_ for the night.” The concerts were emotionally draining for her, she typically didn’t want to do anything in public afterward.

Kee watched her friend for a moment. The on-stage persona was gone, she was back in her usual clothes, makeup removed from her face and she’d braded her hair to keep it out of her face. The red and purple streaks wound their way through the braids, highlighting them beautifully. For a moment she wished she could do something like that with her hair, but Starfleet uniform code only permitted hair color that was natural to one’s species.

Finally, Cadda spoke again. “What did your mother say about you getting time off to come here and not home?”

Kee thought for a moment, she’d sent a message as soon as she arrived but hadn’t heard back. “You know, she hasn’t responded.”

“Maybe she didn’t get it yet.”

“No, she always responds within a day unless there’s a lot of subspace traffic and there wouldn’t be this close to home.” This didn’t feel right. “Maybe the message didn’t transmit somehow.” She stood up and went to one of the consoles. After logging in to her personal account she found that, sure enough, her message hadn’t been sent. She retried the transmission two more times but it continued to be blocked.

“Let me take a look.” Joial said as he took her seat and began tapping around at the interface. Finally, he shook his head, “Something’s blocking outgoing messages, I can’t even ping the nearest subspace relay.” He disappeared into his room and returned with an independent console.

As he opened it up Kee saw Boslic writing on it. “That’s a black-market Boslic Autonomous Cyrotronic unit! Those are illegal on Bajor _and_ in the Federation. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get in just having one?!”

Both Cadda and Joial looked at her as though she’d said the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard. Kee backed down, all three of them had done far more illegal things in the past. She stepped away to give him some space to work. Outgoing messages blocked could be as simple as a mechanical glitch or something very worrisome.

“This is not good.” He said finally and indicated a huge mass of text on his screen, “All incoming and outgoing comm traffic for the last two days have been fake. You see here,” he indicated several sections of the text that didn’t tell her anything, but she took his word for it.

She paced a few times while he continued working. Fake comm traffic definitely pointed to intentional sabotage. And why wouldn’t the Starfleet officers stationed here have uncovered it themselves. Two days was a long time to go without comms. Something big was about to happen, she could feel it. Something bad. But who would target a music exhibition? Someone without much power, without much influence. Without a government or military to back them up… terrorists. The thought sent cold chills through her.

Finally, Joial spoke up again. “I’m seeing multiple unauthorized access events over the last couple of months. The most recent was the same time that the comms went down.”

“Are you sure?”

He pointed out a wall of code on the screen, “They used the same technique to cover their tracks that I used to. I recognize it, alright.”

“Any idea what else they were doing?”

“Checking.”

Cadda’s earlier fatigue had disappeared. There was a problem to handle now and she’d be up for it.

Joial leaned back in his chair. “This is bad. Whoever it was has been into the concert hall’s security system, the Starfleet facility’s system and they accessed the colony’s lockdown procedure.”

Kee shook her head, “Can you download it into a padd for me? I need to report this to the Security Chief.”

Cadda finally interrupted, “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” She shook her head, “It could be an inside job. Otherwise, how would the comm traffic go unnoticed for two days.”

“What do you propose we do?” Kee asked harshly.

“Don’t tip our hand. Find out how deep this goes. Track down whoever’s responsible.”

“You’re talking about some kind of conspiracy, Cadda.” She could accept that there could be a saboteur, maybe two, but it couldn’t possibly go all the way up to the Chief of Security. “No, we found something suspicious, we need to report it to the authorities.”

“Right now we have the advantage, we can move on our terms.”

“‘Move’? What do you mean ‘move’? What do you expect to do?”

“Whatever we need to.”

Kee pointed at the two of them, “You two are civilians, you have no authority. I’m on leave, I have no authority either. We can’t just run off like a bunch of vigilantes to take matters into our own hands.”

“We’ve never needed authority!” Cadda argued.

“Things change.” She said, taking the padd from Joial.

She narrowed her eyes, “Things or people?”

 _Ouch._ “Please,” Kee finally said, “Just wait here. I’ll take care of it.” Then she turned and headed out of the suite.

Just as Kee was passing through the door, Cadda called, “Hey,” she tossed a small comm unit to her, “In case you need it. It’s encrypted.”

Kee nodded and let the door close behind her.

* * *

Kee finished outlining to Lieutenant Carlin what they had found about the comm and security systems.

Carlin’s brow furrowed, “How did you come by this information?”

“I know someone who knows his way around computer systems.” She said, hoping the vague answer would be satisfactory.

“And your _friend_ is certain this isn’t just a glitch?”

“Absolutely. It appears that someone is positioning themselves for some kind of attack on the colony.”

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Cadet.” He said dismissively, turning back to his console.

“Sir, this is a matter of some urgency…”

“I understand, Cadet. I’ll look into it immediately.”

“If I can assist in any way…”

“That won’t be necessary. We do actually have personnel here who are capable of handling the matter.” He said. “Dismissed.”

Kee blinked and backed up one step before turning to leave. She didn’t like this at all. If Carlin was involved somehow… Maybe Cadda was right and they should conduct their own investigation. Kee hadn’t walked thirty seconds down the hallway before a pair of armed security officers stepped in front of her.

“Cadet Norvish,” one of them said, “if you would come with us.”

“Why?”

“We have orders to take you into custody immediately relating to an unauthorized system access.”

Kee didn’t budge, so they moved to flank her and each grabbed her by her upper arms. She considered her options. Were they in on whatever was going on? Or were they loyal Starfleet officers, just doing their job? The idea of assaulting a couple of Starfleet officers made her feel sick. She allowed them to guide her down the hallway, giving no resistance.

As they began to relax their grip she yanked her arm free and smashed her elbow into the face of the officer on her right. The one on her left pulled his phaser but she spun to face him and grabbed his hand, pulling it toward her and hit his nose with the heel of her hand.

She turned back to see the first one swinging a punch at her, she deflected it with her forearm and kneed him in the gut then grabbed his face to shove him down to the floor. His head hit hard and he was out.

The second one grabbed her around the shoulders but she hooked her foot around his, dropped down low and rotated him around her back to slam him into the wall. Once she was sure he was out too she bent down to grab both phasers.

Kee snatched her commbadge off of her shirt and dropped it next to the officers before hurrying into a turbolift. “Ground floor exit.” She told it, pulling out the comm unit Cadda gave her. “Cadda. I don’t know how many officers are involved, but they just tried to arrest me. It won’t take them long to connect the two of you to me, you need to get somewhere safe.”

“We’ve already left. On our way to the old sector of the colony, I’m sending you our location.” Cadda’s voice sounded tinny over the comm.

Kee looked at the unit to confirm that it displayed a set of coordinates on its tiny screen. “Got it. See you soon.” She closed the connection as she rushed out into the night air.

* * *

Kee had reached the old sector of the colony just as the lockdown procedure began. People were instructed to close their businesses and return to their homes as though an attack was imminent. It was, but not from where people expected it.

Starfleet security officers patrolled the area, but there were few enough of them that she was able to evade them easily. There were plenty of officers stationed here to have someone on nearly every street corner. Where were they all?

Kee reached the coordinates Cadda had given her but didn’t immediately see her. After a moment she heard, _“Psst.”_ She turned to see her in the shadows between two older buildings and followed her down the alley way. When they were away from the street Cadda said quietly, “You have to see this.” And led the way into an empty storage shed behind the buildings.

Joial looked up at her with a grim expression and turned his console toward her. It displayed an image of Colony Director Verhoef with Lieutenant Carlin standing behind him in what appeared to be the Colony Ops building. Joial activated the playback, and Verhoef began in the calm tones of a politician.

_“Residents of New France, the Maquis have seized this colony. We have no intention of harming you or anyone else. As long as you remain in your homes, this will end peacefully. All non-Maquis Starfleet personnel have been detained temporarily. The guests at the concert hall will remain under guard there until the Federation Council meets our demands, which are simple: recognize our sovereignty of the Demilitarized Zone immediately and release all Maquis detainees. We wish to be treated as our own state, independent of the Federation, with our own government and our own military. Again, please remain in your homes and this will all be over soon.”_

Kee stared at the blank screen as she processed the message. The Maquis had enjoyed a great deal of freedom since the Klingons invaded Cardassian territory. Evidently they’d grown bold enough to expect complete independence. She couldn’t blame them. She even sympathized with them. But taking hostages was unacceptable.

“The message was broadcast colony-wide a few minutes ago, but they haven’t sent anything to Federation Headquarters.” Joial said.

“Can you keep them from being able to send out that message?” She asked him.

“I think so.” He said and got to work.

“I wonder why they didn’t immediately.” Cadda mused. “Maybe we disrupted their timetable. They weren’t quite ready to move.”

“That might just give us an advantage.” Kee said. With all other loyal Starfleet personnel detained, it was up to her to stop this.

“What do you mean, ‘give us an advantage’? You’re the one who didn’t want to take action ourselves.” Cadda asked.

“That was before we knew what was really going on. We have to stop them.”

“Stop them from doing what? They’re just trying to force the Federation to listen to them. Kee, _they_ are _us_ four years ago!”

“That doesn’t mean what they’re doing is right.”

“If we’d had an opportunity to force the Federation into our fight, do you honestly believe we wouldn’t have taken it?”

“We would _never_ have taken innocent people hostage.”

“Now you’re going to try to act like we always restricted our actions to military targets? You know that’s not true.”

Kee couldn’t claim that they had. “Don’t make this into something it’s not.”

“And what is it not?”

“Our fight.”

Cadda scoffed, “‘Not our fight.’ _Now_ you sound like Starfleet.”

“I _am_ Starfleet. The Prime Directive…”

“The _Prime Directive_ is an excuse not to get their hands dirty!”

“The Prime Directive is more than that.” She began again, hoping she could make her understand. “If Bajor decides not to join the Federation, or if we join and then decide to leave, the Prime Directive _ensures_ our right to _do_ that! It protects us and everyone the Federation interacts with.”

“And what about the Maquis’ right to leave the Federation?”

“There’s nothing stopping them from declaring themselves a sovereign nation. But there is a _legal process_ for doing that. Taking hostages is unacceptable.”

Cadda took a few steps away and turned back to her. “Kee, you know I’m with you no matter what. You fight, I fight. Just be sure you’re fighting the right battle.”

“We have another problem.” Joial interrupted. “I set up a subroutine to check through the logs for more unauthorized entries and it found two more relating to the shipping manifests of two supply deliveries a few weeks ago. There wasn’t anything significant listed in the shipments at first, so I dug around and was able to reconstruct the original records.” He turned the screen to show them what he’d found. “Cabrodine.” He said, pointing to one. “Infernite.” Pointing to the other.

“Cabrodine and infernite.” Kee repeated as a feeling of dread fell over her like a heavy blanket. “They have a bomb.”

“Looks like it.” He confirmed. “And based on the amount of materials, either one massive one or a lot of little ones.”

“The colony’s security grid should have picked up any explosives.”

Joial nodded. “That’s likely the purpose for the hack to the security system.”

“Any way to track down a location?” She asked.

“It would take hours to undo whatever it is they did to the system, but I should be able to locate blindspots. There may be more of them than there are actual bombs, but it’s a place to start.”

“Ok.” Kee nodded, “And see if you can pinpoint where the Starfleet officers are being held.” She handed him one of the phasers and turned to Cadda. “You and I need to get in there somehow.”

“I have a couple of ideas.” She said with a smirk. Kee held the other phaser out to her, but she pushed it back. “Keep it. I’ll find my own.”

Kee nodded, “Just… try not to kill anybody unless absolutely necessary.”

* * *

Cadda had split off from Kee so they could enter the building separately. She’d been willing to allow the Maquis to play this thing out, until they found out about the bombs. Kee had always been a more honorable person than she was. Cadda was willing to do what needed to be done with fewer ethical qualms. Not none, just fewer. But the bombs… yeah, that crossed a line. Innocent people, including her bandmates, would be killed if the Maquis didn’t get their way.

After making her way to the twenty-first floor of an empty administrative building she let herself into an office just above the twentieth-floor’s skywalk that connected to the smaller Colony Operations building. There would be some kind of checkpoint in the skywalk between the two buildings, but she was less likely to run into any security measures _on top_ of the passage.

Cadda slid open the window and stepped out onto the ledge. The roof of the skywalk was less than a meter down and wide enough to hide her from anyone below. She found a couple of handholds and lowered herself down until she could touch the skywalk with her toes. At that point she let go and dropped silently into a crouch. Keeping low, she hurried across.

As soon as she reached the other end she searched for a ledge to creep around the back side of the building. Betting it would hold her weight, she stepped onto a thin, decorative lip that ran all the way around the building. It was narrow, but secure. Handholds were another matter. As she crept along she had to dig her fingers into tight crevices or wrap her hands around large bulkheads. A tiny smile snuck onto her lips as she enjoyed the feeling of her heart pounding in her chest and the heady rush of adrenaline.

When she reached the corner of a balcony, she edged close enough to peek inside. The room was completely dark, so she stepped silently over the railing. It was a quick matter to override the lock, security on a colony inside Federation boarders was not tight. She slipped inside and listened for a moment without hearing anything.

Once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness she could see that she was inside a long conference room with movable bulkheads that could be used to divide up the space into smaller meeting areas. Currently those bulkheads were all pushed to the side, leaving a long corridor-like room with multiple exits. A desk with a console sat nearby, she went over to it and began opening drawers. These Federation types always seemed to stash tricorders everywhere as though the next scientific discovery could come upon them at any moment. Sure enough, after opening the third drawer she found one.

She flipped open the tricorder and scanned the hallway outside. There was one lifesign out there and the scan indicated the person was armed and wearing a Starfleet commbadge. Cadda rummaged around in the desk some more and found a small, rectangular instrument. Nothing harmful, but he wouldn’t know that.

Cadda walked along length of the conference room up to the door where the tricorder told her Maquis stood on the other side. She slid the door open and immediately pressed the object against the back of his neck. “Don’t move.” She said directly into his ear. Once his hands were up, she reached down and pulled his phaser out of its holster, first checking to make sure it was on stun. Then she shoved him with her foot against the opposite wall. When he fell against the wall he turned to look at her. She smiled and held up the object he’d thought was a weapon. Then she shot him.

Tossing the object back into the room, she bent down and dragged him inside. She stood for a moment to look for something that she could use to tie him up. Her eyes fell on the window coverings, which had long tiebacks. She grabbed one of them and quickly tied his hands to his feet behind his back.

Cadda slipped the comm unit out of her pocket and keyed it on. “Joial, I’m in. Where’s Kee?”

_“She just came out of a maintenance crawlway on the fifth floor.”_

“I’m on the twentieth floor. Any idea where the targets are?”

_“I don’t have access to internal sensors, so I’m blind from here.”_

“If I link up a tricorder through the comm unit, would that give you access to the internal sensors?”

 _“I could make that work.”_ He said slowly.

Cadda set about making a connection between the tricorder and the console, which was easy to do. Federation technology all worked very happily together. Linking up the tricorder and the comm unit was a little more difficult, Federation and Lissepian technology didn’t always play nice, but eventually she was able to get them to talk to each other. She set the tricorder down on the desk and it blinked to life as Joial accessed its systems.

 _“There’s a cluster of lifesigns on the eighth floor and a few other individuals scattered around the rest of the building. I’m counting twenty-two lifesigns, not including you and Kee.”_

“Got it. I’m on my way to the eighth floor, have Kee meet me there.” She blew a kiss at the unconscious man on the floor and hurried out the door.

* * *

As Cadda descended the emergency staircase she’d found she shifted the Starfleet phaser in her hand. The grip felt all wrong. Why couldn’t they use a pistol-shaped weapon like everybody else? As she made her way downward as quietly as possible she tapped through the various settings on the phaser, making note of the nice autofire option.

Cadda had become familiar enough with Federation signage that she recognized “8th Floor” marked on the door, but as she got closer to it she could hear phaser fire on the other side of the door. She touched the control that would release the door without opening it, then wedged her fingers between the two halves of the door and slid it open a tiny bit.

Through the crack, she could see a large room filled with rows of small, empty, compartmentalized workstations. She watched for a moment then saw several Starfleet-uniformed people peek up above the edge of the dividers and fire toward the opposite side of the room. An instant later several phaser blasts answered from a single location. Kee.

Cadda knelt down and slid the door open far enough for her to squeeze through then slunk low along the edge of the cluster of workstations until she could see up the row where the Maquis were hiding. One of them was easily visible, the others she might get a shot if she moved quickly after taking down the first one. She silently took aim and shot the first one. Three of the four others spun around and moved out of sight and fired back before she could take a second shot.

Making a quick backtrack two rows over she saw phaser blasts fly over her head. She took cover in one of the workstation compartments and waited long enough for them to approach. When she heard shuffling noises indicating they’d reached the end of the row they were in she leaned out to see who she could pick off, but all she could see was a black-sleeved hand with a phaser pointed in her direction. She pulled back in time for a phaser blast to graze just past her face, then carefully edged back out and fired. Her shot hit his phaser, sending it sparking away from him. That was one unarmed, at least.

Cadda thumbed through the settings on the phaser to select the autofire sequence and programmed it to fire randomly. Then she propped it up on a desk that would approximate her current position. Once it began firing, she kept low and ran to the end where an isle divided the groupings of workstations, then doubled back to the next row toward the hostiles were.

She crept along the row using the partitions between workstations to conceal her movements. When she reached the second to last workstation, one of the hostiles ducked into the first alcove to take cover from her phaser decoy. Unsure where the others were, she readied herself and leapt toward him. He turned, but not soon enough, she grabbed his hand that held the phaser and slammed it into the desk, sending it skittering away.

Cadda backed away and as he got to his feet she jumped backwards up onto a desk. From there she could see all four Maquis. One had stayed in position, exchanging fire with Kee and keeping her pinned in place. Of the three that were currently moving to surround Cadda, one was a blue-skinned Bolian, one looked like a thick-necked goon and the one that still held a phaser was a skinny, pale redhead. She took a moment to assess their threat levels, then made her move.

She dodged the phaser blast from Red while swinging a punch that connected with ridge that ran down Blue’s face. Goon rushed toward her and she kicked him hard in the chest. In her periphery, she saw Kee draw Red’s fire, for the moment anyway, while Cadda stepped across to another desk. Blue was back up and reaching to pull her down but she side-kicked him on the jaw.

Red was turning to shoot at her again and she jumped down onto him, knocking the phaser out of his hand and slamming his head into the floor. She rolled with the momentum and ended up back on her feet in a crouch. With Goon hurrying toward her, she grabbed a thin computer off of a nearby desk, with the same movement she swung it up and slammed it across his face. The casing split in two and sparked, forcing her to drop the improvised weapon.

Blue grabbed her shoulder and spun her around directly into a gut punch. She staggered back and Goon grabbed her from behind. She pushed up as hard as she could with her legs and dropped down, pulling him over her back and throwing him against Blue.

Red tried to grab her from behind but she swung wide and hit him across the jaw, then grabbed the back of his neck to slam his forehead into a desk. One down.

Just as Goon was getting up, she drove her knee into his nose and smashed his head sideways against a partition. Two down.

She dodged a punch from Blue and as his arm sailed past her face she grabbed it and twisted it behind his back, forcing him to double over. Then she struck the base of his skull with her elbow. Three down.

At that point she could still hear the sound of phasers as Kee continued to exchange fire with Number Four. Cadda hurried to pick up the phaser she’d knocked out of Red’s hand and slunk around the corner where she could create a crossfire. She still couldn’t get a shot at him, but might at least be able to draw his fire and give Kee an opening.

She targeted him based on where Kee was aiming and as soon as she fired, a couple of phaser blasts answered back, followed immediately by more phaser fire from Kee, then silence.

As Cadda took a moment to catch her breath, Kee rushed up to her. The two of them tapped forearms in congratulations. Kee handed her three pairs of restraints and turned away while Cadda secured the three she’d knocked out. As she was taking care of the other two, Kee pulled the comm unit out. “Joial, where are we going?”

_“Head out the door on the east side of the room. There are two targets in the Colony Director’s office and one nearby moving away from your position.”_

“Got it.” Kee said. In the Director’s office, the Maquis would likely have access to just about everything they’d need for their operation. “Have you found the locations of the bombs?”

_“Possibly. There are a number of small sensor gaps throughout the concert hall, but I can’t give you exact locations.”_

“Any luck on releasing those Starfleets?” Cadda asked.

_“Still working on it.”_

“If you do, and if you talk to them, be sure to let them know I’m on their side.”

_“Will do.”_

Cadda grinned at Kee as they moved toward the exit on the east side of the room.

Kee shook her head at her, “You’re enjoying this.”

Cadda shrugged, “Is there something wrong with that?”

“I think there might be.” Kee gave her a lopsided smirk, but it was gone in an instant when they reached the door. Cadda always loved to watch for that moment when she switched from the fun, playful Kee to the serious, mission-focused Kee. She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. The latter version was the one in charge now and she would _not_ appreciate the comment.

Cadda followed Kee down the hallway with their backs against the wall and phasers ready. It had always been Ren’s unspoken command that Kee was his Second and it still felt natural to follow her lead. Not only because of Ren’s preference, but because she had proven herself many times worthy of their allegiance. She’d shadow her right through the Fire Caves and back.

The two stalked through the hallway until they caught sight of a straggler up ahead. When he saw them he fired his phaser at them once then took off in the direction he was heading. She could hear him calling ahead to his comrades. So much for the element of surprise. At least they had someone to follow, though. They jogged ahead in cautious pursuit.

At the end of a long hallway they came upon a spacious seating area in front of a wide doorway marked with a sign that said _Colony Director Mike Verhoef_. Kee took a position on one side of the door while Cadda moved to the other side and began working to override the lock.

The door slid open to silence and the two women peeked around the edge. In that brief moment Cadda could see an assistant’s desk just inside with a glass partition behind it that depicted the colony’s skyline dividing the space from a large office beyond. Before she could see more, phaser fire erupted from behind the partition.

Kee bent down and slunk inside, using the desk as cover. Cadda followed.

“I count three hostiles.” Kee said quietly.

“Same here.” There was one behind a large desk in the back and two behind one of two sofas facing each other in the center of the room. “But I’d like to get this partition out of the way. It provides no cover, just blocks our view.”

“Agreed.” With that, Kee pointed her phaser over her head and fired backward at it. The glass shattered instantly and pieces crashed down all around. The three Maquis resumed firing over their heads and Kee carefully turned around to face the desk. “I’ll keep them pinned down, you swing around to the right, take out the one behind the Director’s desk, I’ll take these two. Whichever one is Carlin, try not to knock him out, I have a few questions for him.”

“Got it.”

She handed Kee her phaser and she continued to fire with a phaser in each hand as though both of the women were still there. Cadda slid over to the edge of the desk and gave Kee a signal. To cover her movements, Kee let loose a barrage of phaser fire toward the other side of the room. The moment Cadda made it behind the sofa she stopped to keep the phasers from overheating.

Cadda crept to the other end where she could see that it was Carlin behind the desk. There was no cover between her position and his. She pondered her options, which were few. In fact, she could only come up with one strategy: an insane, idiotic, foolish leap across the desk. A move that Ren certainly would have scolded her for. But he wasn’t in charge anymore, so she positioned her legs under her to give her the greatest leverage and sprung forward. She cleared the edge of the desk and took another small leap directly on top of the shocked Carlin.

He grasped at her as she pulled him to the floor. She grabbed the back of his hand and pulled it backward farther than his wrist should bend and his fingers automatically released their grip on the phaser. He tried to wrap his arm around her neck but she twined her legs around his and slipped her body behind his back where she hooked her arms around both of his elbows and pulled them behind his back.

In the momentary respite, she realized that the phaser fire had stopped and she heard the sounds of a struggle nearby. She maneuvered her feet onto the floor, straddling him and hauled him to his feet. Before she could make out who had the upper hand in the scuffle on the other side of the room, Carlin shoved backward and slammed her into the corner of the desk. It dug into the back of her ribcage.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she slid her knee up against the small of his back and pressed forward while wrenching his shoulders back. With a painful grunt, he dropped to his knees and she could finally check on Kee who was in the middle of delivering a full body slam to one of her opponents.

Once she’d verified that both of them were staying down she produced two more pairs of restraints. Where was she getting those from? And secured those two before pulling a desk chair into the middle of the room.

Cadda pulled Carlin back to his feet and dumped him into the chair then retrieved a couple of phasers for them.

“Where is the detonator?!” Kee immediately demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He insisted.

Cadda raised her hand again to hit him with the handle of the phaser but Kee grabbed her arm to stop her. When she backed off Kee stood in front of him. “We know about the bombs.”

“What bombs?” He seemed genuinely baffled.

“We found evidence of the concealed shipments containing cabrodine and infernite. There are blind spots in the security grid around the concert hall. So, I’m guessing that’s where your bombs are, rigged to level the whole place.”

A horrified expression crossed his face. “Those aren’t ours.”

Cadda crossed her arms and gave Kee a sidelong look. She didn’t believe him either.

“I mean it. All the Maquis want is our sovereignty of the DMZ to be recognized. We’re expecting this to end peacefully. An attack on Federation citizens would be counterproductive, it would only make them come down on us.”

Cadda wanted to believe him. She suddenly saw the same desperation on his face that she’d felt at times. But this was no time for a soft touch. In this performance of Good Vigilante/Bad Vigilante, she was definitely not the good one. She stepped closer to him aggressively.

“I swear! They’re not ours!” He said, edging toward anger.

Cadda backed off and Kee turned away thoughtfully. “If they’re not yours, who’s are they?”

“I don’t know. Only trusted members of the Maquis were in on this.”

“Then it must be one of your own.”

“Impossible.”

“Who was in charge of altering the computer systems?”

“It was Bookter. But he’s a computer tech, he doesn’t have the expertise to build a bomb.”

“Then who’s above him?”

“He answers directly to Verhoef.” He shook his head, “But Verhoef would never betray the Maquis. He’s been with us from the beginning.”

“Does Verhoef have the expertise to build the bombs?”

He thought desperately, “I don’t know, maybe. Like I said, he’s been with the Maquis for a long time.”

“Was anyone else involved in sabotaging the computer systems?”

“No. Each stage of the plan was compartmentalized. I’m sure _you_ understand that.”

“Where is Verhoef now?”

“How should I know. You two probably shot him out there somewhere.”

Kee looked at her and shrugged, she shrugged back. “It wasn’t me.”

Kee pulled out her comm unit. “Joial, is there any sign of Verhoef’s location?”

_“One moment.”_

Kee looked at her, “What do you think?” She said quietly enough that Carlin couldn’t hear.

“I don’t think he knew about the bombs. He’s right, that would be a bad move for the Maquis.”

“I agree. Verhoef?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right. Why would someone who’s been Maquis for that long turn against his own people? Bookter could have had another accomplice.”

Joial’s voice broke through the comm, _“I’ve got Verhoef on a security cam entering the concert hall about five minutes ago with another man in a blue Starfleet uniform.”_

Carlin spoke up, “That’s probably Bookter. He’s the only one from the science division we have on our side. I don’t know why they’re doing what they are, but you have to stop them before they kill those people.”

“Why would they go there?” Kee asked, but Cadda knew she knew the answer: suicide mission. “Do you know where in the concert hall they might go?” Kee asked him.

“There’s an office overlooking the main hall, maybe he’d go there.”

Kee looked over at Cadda, “See if you can do anything to help release the officers. I’ll handle Bookter and Verhoef.”

* * *

The concert hall was crawling with former Starfleet security officers. She wondered if they knew about the bombs or if they thought they were just keeping the hostages in place. Kee carefully avoided them, but it was difficult. She had snuck around plenty of corridors back in the Resistance, but Cardassians were easier to hear approaching. Humans wearing soft Starfleet uniforms instead of armor were much quieter. Even her shoes seemed too loud on the tiled floor, so she slipped them off and padded along in only her socks.

She crept up to an intersection. There was a guard just around the corner. She’d never be able to sneak past him. She reached around to hook his neck with her elbow and pulled him backward against her. He regained his footing enough to push back and slam her against the wall, but she held him in a tight chokehold, cutting off his breathing until he went limp in her arms. She took a moment to make sure he was still alive, then lowered him down onto the floor and hurried forward.

She ducked past two more patrols before approaching the office Carlin had indicated. There were two gold-uniformed officers standing outside. She peered around, there was no cover to sneak up on them, so she decided on a frontal approach and strode blatantly toward them. “Hi. I wanted to talk to someone in charge…” She stopped and raised her hands with two phasers pointed at her chest.

“How did you get out of the concert hall?” One of them asked.

She shrugged. “Like this…” with that she quickly grabbed the wrist of the one on the right, pulled his arm across her chest and held it tight while pressing her elbow hard into his jaw and turned the phaser to shoot his partner. He struggled and threw off her aim, but she was glad he did because it became clear that the phaser was not set on stun when it produced a nasty phaser burn where it hit the other guy’s arm. Fortunately, it sent him reeling back in pain.

The Starfleet training to extract himself from the hold she had on him would be to twist her arm around behind her back. He immediately tried to do so. She placed her leg behind his knee and shoved backward with all of her weight while pressing her knee into the back of his, causing it to buckle. As he fell, she held onto his arm and flipped him onto his stomach with his arm twisted tight behind his back.

She pulled out her phaser and stunned the injured one as he was trying to take aim with his uninjured hand. Then she pressed her knee between the shoulder blades of this one with all her weight to encourage him to stop struggling. She was too close to safely stun him with the phaser, so she raised the weapon backwards, “Trust me, I’m saving your life.” She told him before hitting a precise spot on the back of his head to knock him out.

Kee pressed the pad to open the door and entered the darkened room to find a man’s silhouette in front of a window overlooking the concert hall where the hostages were gathered. It was Verhauf, but where was Bookter? She pointed her phaser at him. “Turn around slowly. Hands where I can see them.”

His only movement was to lift one hand to show her the detonator, and his thumb on the switch. “You might want to put that phaser down.”

She lowered the phaser and set it down on the desk next to her. “Ok. The phaser’s down.”

“You’re probably wondering why the Maquis would carry out such a blatant attack on the Federation. After all, we’ve always focused on Cardassian targets unless absolutely necessary.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Would it surprise you to find that I’m not Maquis?” He paused for dramatic effect that fell flat. “Oh, I was, and so were some of my associates. Until a building full of innocent civilians ended up in the crossfire during a skirmish between the Maquis and Cardassians.”

He finally turned away from the window toward her. “The building was so badly damaged during the fight that it collapsed, killing everyone inside. They killed _our own people_. And those responsible continue to walk free.”

“And now you’re taking this opportunity to use the Federation to get back at the Maquis.” She said, finally putting it all together. “You’re going to frame them for this bombing.”

“I had planned to wait until we sent out a transmission taking credit and issuing our demands. But you’ve made that impossible. Doesn’t matter, though. It won’t take much of an investigation for Starfleet to point the finger at the Maquis, and when that happens, it’ll give them the excuse they need to come in and wipe them out.”

“You’re going to kill innocent civilians in order to take revenge for the Maquis killing innocent civilians?” She said mockingly. “Don’t you see it? You’re the same kind of monster that you’re accusing the Maquis of being.”

“But I won’t escape justice. I’ll be killed in the blast, too.”

“That’s not justice, it’s revenge.” She wasn’t getting through, she needed to dig. “Look, I know what it’s like to lose someone to a senseless tragedy.” She thought about her brother. “For their death to be considered nothing more than _collateral damage_. To wonder if the shot that did it came from the enemy or the people who were _supposed_ to be on your side.” She came closer to him, almost within striking distance. “But what you’re doing will not bring justice. All it does is increase the death toll. You will die a murderer, not a champion of justice.”

“What I am doesn’t matter.” He turned back to the window and she saw her chance.

She rushed toward him, grabbing his arm and wrenching it backward. He lurched back and together they slammed into the desk. Kee held onto his arm and smashed his knuckles against the desk, causing him to lose his grip on the detonator. It went clattering away.

Verhauf grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled her closer to slam his knee into her stomach, then hit her chin with the heel of his hand.

She stepped back and he threw another punch but she dodged and grabbed his arm, pulling it toward her and hit the side of his elbow with the heel of her hand. As he reacted to the pain she twisted around and grabbed his back to knee him in the gut.

While still bent over he swung a punch at her stomach, causing her bend and he reached up and wrapped his hands around her throat.

She placed her hand over his face and pushed his head back and to the side to break his hold, finally pushing him off balance and he fell backward into her knee.

As he fell he held on to her, pulling her down and he rolled on top of her, straddling her waist and bending over her.

She reached over his right shoulder and bunched up the back of his shirt in her right hand, then grabbed the back of his shirt on the other side with her right hand and slipped her left arm over to the other side of his neck. Ending up with her arms crisscrossed around his neck, she squeezed until his consciousness began to fade. Then she rolled him off to the side and kept up the pressure until he was nearly unconscious before letting go and flipped him over onto his stomach, holding his wrists tight behind his back.

Suddenly voices came through the door and Kee reached for the phaser she’d set down on the desk, but it was too far.

Cadda burst into the room, flanked by two Starfleet officers. Cadda quickly explained, “They’re on our side. Joial was able to release the forcefields.”

One of the officers pulled a pair of restraints from somewhere behind him and bent down to secure Verhauf’s wrists behind his back. Kee backed away and bent over, resting her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She felt a fist tap against her shoulder and looked up to see Cadda’s lopsided smile.

* * *

Auxiliary Security Chief Neason immediately ordered Kee back onto active duty and authorized her temporary reassignment to the New France colony’s security force until new personnel could be brought in to replace the Maquis defectors. She’d ended up staying a week past when she planned on leaving.

Unfortunately, her duties didn’t give her much time to spend with Cadda and Joial like she’d hoped. They walked her to the transport hub and when they arrived, Cadda pressed her forehead against Kee’s affectionately. “I’ll miss you. Come home sometime, won’t you?”

“I will.” She promised and turned to Joial who wrapped his arms around her for a tight hug. She squeezed back, resting her forehead against his chest for a moment.

Finally, he let go and pulled back. “Don’t let these gold shoulders get too heavy for you.”

Kee smiled, then searched for something to break the tension. “You two are so dramatic! We’ll talk on subspace in a few days.” She said drawing a chuckle from both of them. Then with more seriousness, “I’ll miss you both.”

With that she stepped onto the transporter platform. She’d had a chance to work alongside Joial and Cadda one more time to stop a mass murder and all she had to exchange for it was a couple of weeks of double shifts. Best trade ever.

* * *

Three weeks later the Cardassians joined the Dominion and the Maquis were wiped out.


	6. STARFLEET: 2373, END OF YEAR 2

Kee picked at the last of the food on her plate. Back at the Academy again with her friends, she’d expected her birthday to pass unnoticed, but she had no such luck. At least they’d had the good sense not to throw some ridiculous party, but had still insisted on taking her out to dinner. She turned her attention back to the conversation around the table and smiled, it was good to be back with this group during the last few weeks of their sophomore year.

Maggie, Loren, Jack and Lweha had been sharing stories about why they had decided to enter their respective fields of study. Jack was finishing his, which was pretty similar to the rest. His parents were Starfleet officers, he grew up in this lifestyle and at a certain point in his childhood he’d sparked an interest in engineering, which apparently included taking apart and putting together a number of pieces of equipment in his family’s quarters and around their ship, much to the frustration of the engineering staff.

All four of them had told their stories while Kee remained content to only listen. As close as the five cadets had grown, she still always felt like an outsider, unsure about what and how much to share about herself, never very comfortable sharing things that were so very different than what they had experienced. Give her a problem to solve or a bad guy to track down and she could do it, but social situations were difficult.

Apparently noticing that she had yet to tell her story, the four of them turned in unison to face her. “Well? What about you, Kee? Why did you choose security?” Jack asked.

She shrugged, “It’s what I’m good at.” She said, hoping that would be enough.

“Nope, not this time.” Maggie said, seeming to read her mind, as though _she_ was the Betazoid in the group. “There had to be a moment, some event when you knew that, Starfleet or otherwise, you wanted to work in security or defense or something like that. Was it when you joined the Resistance?”

Kee sighed, “No, it was a while after that.” She paused, hoping again that they’d be satisfied, but they just waited, it didn’t look like she was going to get out of it this time. Reluctantly she began, “I’d been with them for, oh, about a year and a half. Ren had kept me by his side, training me, almost constantly that whole time. We had gone out to meet a contact. Only, the contact had been picked up by the Cardassians and forced to give away our meeting place and time. They were there waiting for us.”

\- - -

Kee walked at Ren’s side as she always did, only this time their hands were bound behind their backs and they were surrounded by Cardassian soldiers. He seemed so composed, so completely under control. Her heart raced and her knees felt weak as she struggled to emulate his calm. They’d been led through city streets and into a Cardassian building that was officially called a “peace-keeping facility” but everyone knew what really went on there. There were several Cardassian-run facilities grouped together; a shipping warehouse, the records office in which her father and uncle had once worked, some kind of administration building and a few others that she didn’t know the purpose. Joial had told her that all of them were connected via underground tunnels to be used during the winter so the Cardassians could avoid going out into the cold. Once inside the complex they were taken down a corridor to a holding cell.

After their wrists were unshackled they were shoved into the holding cell. Kee nearly tripped over the lip of the force field emitter, but managed to keep her footing. Ren sat on the single bench, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing the stubble on his chin. She sat next to him and waited.

After a few moments he began pointing out some unique characteristics of the holding cell that would identify its design era and type. He never seemed to miss an opportunity to teach. She thought he’d have made an excellent educator under different circumstances, teaching mathematics, science or history instead of how to be a freedom fighter. This time his instruction ended with the grim conclusion that this cell had no weaknesses or design flaws they he knew of.

The guard sitting at the nearby desk suddenly realized they were talking and he shouted, “Silence!”

Kee and Ren sat in silence for quite some time. Even without speaking, at least his presence was comforting to her. She continued to admire his calm and hoped that someday, somehow she’d master it too. When three soldiers entered the holding area, Ren whispered to her, “Stay there, don’t do anything.”

She obeyed. They lowered the force field and one of them pointed a phaser at Ren, “You, step forward.” He slowly stepped out of the cell. Her stomach tightened as they bound his wrists again and led him away while the guard who’d been at the desk reactivated the force field, cutting her off from him.

Now, alone in the cell, she fought harder than ever to keep her emotions in check. The other members of their cell wouldn’t realize something was wrong for another day, at least. No one was going to come for them before then, and by then it might be too late. Panic began to creep up her spine like something physical that would strangle her. Her hands shook, her stomach felt sick and tears filled her eyes. She fought the panic away and just as she was regaining control she heard Ren’s voice, but it was not a reassuring sound, he was screaming in pain.

The panic returned and she couldn’t fight it away this time. She covered her face with her hands and pressed her elbows against her thighs. Tears flowed freely and her entire body shook. The screaming went on for longer than she could have imagined, gradually growing weaker and then it suddenly stopped. Fear gripped her heart and she waited, hardly able to breathe. Time passed so slowly and with every moment she felt more certain that she’d never see him again.

She looked up when she heard the door open to see two soldiers dragging Ren back to the cell. She stood but kept back when they lowered the force field. They would have dumped his unconscious body onto the floor, but Kee caught him, just barely. She struggled under his weight but managed to lower him gently onto the bench.

Some part of her mind registered the sound of the force field reactivating but she ignored it, all of her attention focused on her mentor. His face was bruised and his clothes covered in blood but there were no wounds, only freshly healed scars covering his chest and stomach. His hair was sweaty against his forehead. When she pushed it away from his face her fingers came away red with blood. She looked and found a gash on his scalp but the blood was dark and not flowing anymore. She knelt by his side feeling small and helpless but keeping protective watch anyway.

\- - -

“I knelt by his side for a long time.” Kee continued. “And I knew then that I would spend my life defending and protecting people. It wasn’t a choice that I made, or something I really even wanted, just the truth and I knew it then.” She looked up to see her friends completely focused on her, waiting. She feared she’d shared too much, that she’d shocked them with the reality of her life at that time.

“So?” Jack said, finally. “What happened? Did he survive? How’d you make it out?”

“Oh.” She said, realizing that she had left them hanging in the middle of a story they couldn’t possibly have known the ending to. She considered just cutting it off there with the most brief explanation they’d let her get away with, but they’d always been considerate of her privacy. She decided for once to open up to them. “Um, he drifted in and out of consciousness for a long time. All I could do was wait and hope.” She paused, the memory still sent chills down her spine.

“Hope he’d wake up?” Lweha prompted.

But Kee let out a short laugh without any amusement to it, “Hope he _wouldn’t_. I knew as soon as he woke, they’d come for him again. But he did eventually.”

\- - -

Ren’s eyes slowly began to open, and this time they focused on her. She kept her face a mask of calm, pushing the fear and dread away into the corner of her mind, and forced herself to look him in the eye. When he spoke, his voice was a coarse whisper. “Kee. If you find a way out of here, just go, don’t come back for me.”

She allowed the corner of her mouth to creep up sarcastically, “Seriously? You’re going to pull the old ‘leader selflessly tells his subordinate to leave him behind’ cliché?”

His lips matched her half-smile, “It’s not unselfish at all. I’ve spend a lot of time on you and I don’t want it to go to waste.” The smile spread the rest of the way across his face and the corners of his eyes wrinkled.

To her surprise she laughed, but then felt her smile fade. “Unfortunately you trained me too well. You would never leave somebody behind and neither will I.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, “I mean it, Kee. If they don’t break me soon, they’ll bring you in and torture you to make me talk. That can’t happen.”

The door opened again, cutting off anything she was going to say. She felt her back stiffen and stayed by his side when the force field deactivated.

“Out of the way!” One of the Cardassians shouted at her. When she didn’t move he shoved her to the side and grabbed Ren off of the bench.

As they pulled him up she sprang to her feet, an overwhelming feeling of defiance welling up inside of her. “ _Geshekh ba karad’em!_ ” She spat the insult at them in their own language. The guard who had pushed her turned around with the butt of his phaser rifle raised. He bashed the weapon against her jaw then into her stomach causing her to drop to her knees, doubled over. She looked up to see the force field reactivate and the door close behind the Cardassians and Ren.

She wanted to scream but didn’t dare give them the satisfaction, instead she pushed her fingers through her hair focused on the real pain in her stomach. At least that was something she could manage. Too soon, screaming filled the air. Ren. This time instead of panic enveloping her, she felt rage. Dark, black rage. She stood up, pacing the cell several times, feeling like a caged animal. She fought to control the emotion, reminding herself that it was no more useful than pure panic and dropped down onto the bench.

She calmed her nerves by focusing her mind on escape. If the cell had no mechanical or systemic weakness, Ren had taught her the only option was user error. She watched the guard at the desk out of the corner of her eye. He sat motionless, studying something on his computer interface, but she was certain he was paying close attention to her.

Her young age caused a lot of people to underestimate her, but Cardassians weren’t stupid, they knew that Resistance members her age could be just as dangerous as those that were older. And yet… her age might possibly be the only thing she could use to her advantage. The question was, how? She needed to make him lower the force field and get ahold of his phaser, the rest she could probably improvise.

As her plan began to take place in her mind she stood and moved to the right side of the cell where the guard would have a harder time seeing her. She prepared herself by allowing the fear she’d been fighting to show through in her face and posture. She ducked her head and hunched her shoulders. As she balled her left hand into a fist she saw the guard shift in his chair to see her better. Committing herself to her plan, she raised her left hand to him, palm down as though offering him something in her hand. “Hey.” She called to him in the thinnest, smallest voice she could manage.

“What do you have?” He stood and approached the cell, curious about what she’d supposedly found.

She kept her eyes on the floor and her arm outstretched, allowing her hand to shake. After considering her for long moments, he lowered the force field. She took a fearful step back, forcing him to step into the cell with her. He reached out and she placed her hand on his brushing against his cold, dry skin, her fingers still curled around nothing.

She summoned every bit of courage inside of her, grabbed his wrist with all her strength, raised her right arm behind her and smashed the heel of her hand into his nose. Bone and cartilage gave way under the blow. He reeled back, reaching for his phaser, but she grabbed it off of his belt. She kicked him in his armored chest, sending him stumbling back against the wall then raised the phaser and shot him directly in the face. Alarms immediately began to blare.

She didn’t wait for his body to crumple to the floor before rushing out of the cell. The access conduits would be her best bet for moving through the building undetected, the duranium composite the Cardassians used would shield her biosigns.

The access point for the conduit in this room was a grate in the ceiling. “Perfect.” She muttered cynically, tucking the phaser into the back of her waistband. She crouched and jumped as high as she could, just barely gripping her fingers through the holes in the grate. After shifting back and forth to get a better grip she swung her legs up, kicking the next panel loose. Again she swung her legs up and into the conduit, hooking her feet around a sturdy piece of machinery.

Once she was sure her feet were secure she released her fingers and allowed her body to hang up-side-down for a moment to catch her breath, then lifted herself high enough to grab ahold of the sides of the opening and pulled herself inside. As she gulped air she slid the grate back into place.

She crawled quickly through the access conduits on her hands and knees. If… when?... the Cardassians realized she was in here, they’d have a hard time keeping up with her in their bulky armor. If they could fit at all, that is. There were some places that were a tight squeeze even for her. She heard Ren scream again, it was louder in here, the sound echoing through the network of passages. She felt sick. Hang on, Ren. She willed him to feel her coming for him.

After turning a few corners, she spotted a distinctive bundle of cables. She followed it along the tunnel until the cables entered a junction box. Joial had shown her this once, it was an access point for the security system. She ran her fingers around the sides of the box and found a locking mechanism on one side. Following his instruction, she selected a specific cable from the bundle and wrenched it out of the box. She backed up and shielded her face with one hand while gently touching the end of the live wire to the lock which sparked wildly for a moment then went dead.

With the box unlocked, she pried it open with her finger tips. It gave way to reveal a network of computer pathways, cables and isoliniar rods. She reached in and began rerouting some of the pathways and moving isoliniar rods around. The blaring alarm claxon and Ren’s weakening screams threw off her concentration and she struggled to focus. _Come on, Joial, how do I do this?_

She did her best to remember what her uncle had shown her and prayed that she wasn’t about to electrocute herself. Or worse, trip some kind of security device that would render her unconscious and she’d wake up back in… She pushed the thought away and focused on disabling the security grid.

When the small display inside the box showed “Error Number 2209” she breathed in relief, then began crawling down the access tunnel again. Her knees were hurting now, but she kept moving, watching for another item that could be useful to her. When she saw a cluster of mechanisms mounted on the wall, she sat cross-legged and looked more closely for a certain device.

After a moment, she found what she was looking for behind the other equipment: an auxiliary interchange backup unit to the environmental systems. She grabbed the palm-sized component and pulled it out, breaking its connection. Placing it in her lap, she forced the casing open and pulled out a small, green cylinder about the size of her thumb. The tiny plasma tube had something to do with regulating the power flow, or so Joial had told her. That didn’t matter, the reason she wanted it was, when broken, it would ignite and give off a bright flash of light. Which made it a portable and somewhat easy-to-find method of distraction.

With the plasma tube tucked in her pocket, she sat for a moment with her eyes closed, listening for Ren. When she heard him, she turned and began crawling toward the sound. At each intersection she stopped and waited, moving closer and closer to the source.

As she drew near she could also hear Cardassian voices. She entered a section where it sounded like they were right below her and she peeked through the ceiling grate. When she saw the scene below her she nearly screamed. She covered her mouth and lurched back away from what she saw.

They had Ren manacled to a table and they were using a hooked blade to cut into his skin across his chest and stomach. The bloody, dripping stripes seared themselves into her vision. She closed her eyes and tried to wipe away the memory. He screamed again and she shut her eyes as tightly as she could. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears and tears seeped out the corners of her eyes.

With shaking hands, she crept forward, willing herself not to panic again. She avoided looking at Ren, instead focusing on the Cardassians. In addition to the two that were torturing him, there were four guards standing around the room with their weapons drawn. _They must think the entire cell is here to rescue him._ She thought. If they were expecting a full assault, not a single escapee, that would give her an advantage.

She slipped the plasma tube out of her pocket, pulled the phaser out and shifted her body so that she was sitting just up to the edge of the grate. When she was in place she breathed in deeply through her nose and out slowly through her mouth. Before she could change her mind, she kicked the grate out of place, threw down the plasma tube and jumped down with her arm over her eyes to block the blinding light of the plasma tube.

The tube hit the floor a fraction of a second before she did and flashed brightly. When her feet touched the floor, she tucked and rolled to reduce the impact, staying crouched when she came upright. Phaser fire lanced through the air above her head as the Cardassians fired blindly towards where they thought their targets would be.

Keeping low, she raised her phaser and took out three of the guards, then rolled to another position as the remaining guard and interrogators blasted the spot where she’d been, locating her from the sound of her phaser. She fired again, dispatching the rest of them.

Without missing a beat, she turned and fired into the door’s control panel to disable it. Then hurried over to release Ren’s hands and feet. He was dazed, either from the agony or her plasma tube. She released his bonds and bent over him, “Ren!” she called, snapping her fingers in front of her face. “Ren!” After a few moments he seemed to realize she was there, she wrapped his open shirt around his wounds to slow the bleeding and helped him to his feet, grabbing a dermal regenerator from the table of instruments.

She left Ren to support himself against a console and bent to pick up a tricorder off of one of the dead interrogators, stuffed it into her pocket along with the dermal regenerator, then moved to another console to tap in some commands. “Everything’s locked out.”

“Because you set off the alarms, Kee.” Ren said weakly, stating the obvious. “Did you disable the security grid while you were up there?” He nodded to the access conduit she had dropped out of.

“Of course.” She said lightly and began looking around for some piece of equipment she could use to stop or slow down the Cardassians so they could escape down the corridor. After a few minutes of searching she found what she was looking for, a plasma infuser and a neurolytic restraint which just happened to use components made of tri-nitrogen chloride. She opened the casings of both devices and began assembling a crude plasma grenade.

Her anxiety peaked as she began to hear sounds of Cardassian soldiers on the other side of the door. She stole a glance to assure herself that it was still closed and saw that Ren had managed to grab a phaser off of one of the dead guards. Her fingers quickly followed the practiced movements to build the explosive. At least this was something she’d done dozens of times and she felt confident she could complete it quickly. There was a clunk on the other side of the door as the Cardassians attached something to it to force it open.

After connecting the newly combined components to the infuser’s activation switch she stuffed it into her pocket and grabbed a second phaser off of one of the guards. She moved over to Ren and lifted him up with her shoulder for support, wrapping her arm around his waist to move closer to the door. They took up positions on either side of the door as the soldiers on the other side began forcing the doors apart. When the opening in the middle of the door was wide enough to fit a phaser through, she reached over and fired blindly into the crack, rewarded by the sound of two bodies hitting the ground.

Together she and Ren fired through the widening opening to clear the section of corridor just outside of the doors, then she pulled the doors the rest of the way open. She leaned part way out and fired farther down the corridor to push them back past the juncture and pulled out her plasma grenade. She pressed the key, tossed it down the corridor and leaned back inside the interrogation room just as green plasma fire licked past the door.

As soon as the plasma fire had retreated enough, she helped Ren out into the corridor and together they hobbled down the other direction. She wished she had a whole bag of plasma grenades like she would have if this had been a rescue mission coming in from the outside. But phasers were all they had now and they’d have to do.

They crept up to the next intersection and phaser fire greeted their approach. She pulled her extra phaser out of her belt and keyed in commands that would disable the safety mechanism and set it to overload. She slid the phaser part way down the corridor towards the Cardassians then leaned out and fired at it.

The explosion shook the ground. She managed to keep Ren on his feet but the blast knocked out her hearing. In spite of the fact that the only sound she could hear for the moment was ringing in her ears, she rushed across the charred intersection to the corridor on the other side, pulling Ren quickly but gently and firing at the few soldiers still standing on the other side.

A few meters farther down the corridor she saw a door marked with Cardassian characters that loosely translated to “underground passage”. She hit the door control to open it and they ducked inside. Across from the door was a spiral staircase leading down. She stopped to pull the tricorder out of her pocket and began tapping at the interface to set the device to emit a dispersion field. Once they left the area where she’d disabled the security grid, they’d need to mask their biosigns. It responded with an error code. She tapped the commands again, still nothing.

Ren looked over her shoulder and pointed to part of the interface. “You forgot to initiate the DRX module.”

Kee let out a frustrated sound and tried the sequence again, remembering the extra step. This time it obediently initiated the dispersion field and she began moving down the staircase with her phaser ready. Ren followed, gripping the handrail as he lowered himself down each step. The base of the staircase opened up directly into a long, dark tunnel.

Being summer time, the tunnels weren’t currently in use. She waited for Ren to join her at the bottom of the stairs and again propped him up with her shoulder. She activated the tricorder again and called up a map of the tunnels choosing a rout that would take them to the shipping warehouse.

As they began to move in that direction Ren’s strength gave out and he dropped to his knees. She crouched next to him, keeping him from falling to the floor. In the dim light from the tricorder she could just barely see his face. He was growing weaker and weaker.

She quickly scanned him with the tricorder and it confirmed that he’d lost a dangerous amount of blood, a fact that was reinforced by the dark patches of his blood soaked into her clothes. She helped him sit down to lean back against the wall and pulled open his shirt. Then she used the dermal regenerator to heal the worst of his lacerations to slow the blood loss and tucked it back into her pocket.

“Come on, back on your feet. We’ve got to keep moving.” She said, getting ready to help him up.

“No, I’m slowing you down. I’ll stay here and cover you if they follow us down here.”

“Karad Ren!” She cursed at him, “If I had any intention of leaving here without you, I would have done it before dropping into that interrogation room! Now move!” She pulled him to his feet and this time he cooperated.

“This is treason.”

“Yeah… well, we're outlaws anyway, what're _you_ going to do about it?” Without giving him a chance to argue she guided him along the tunnel. The straight passage and smooth walls would give them no cover if they were followed so she hurried him as fast as he could manage, using the tricorder as a dim flashlight.

When they reached the staircase that would take them up into the warehouse she used the tricorder on a passive scan only to check for life signs in the immediate area above them. There were none. She drew her phaser and climbed the stairs to find a small room similar to the top of the staircase they’d used a few minutes earlier.

She stepped part way back down the stairs and helped Ren climb the rest of the way up. Then she keyed the door open a crack to peer out into the warehouse. There were Cardassian civilians moving quickly back and forth bringing supplies in for storage and delivering other goods out to the cargo transport unit situated just beyond the large, open bay doors.

Resisting the urge to sprint directly to freedom she waited and watched. Soon she saw a pair of soldiers scanning the area with their tricorders. She involuntarily shrunk back as though that would help prevent them from picking up their biosigns. If their dispersion field wasn’t functioning properly, they’d know it soon enough, but the soldiers scanned right past their hiding place and moved on, stopping and questioning some of the civilian workers.

Once the soldiers had moved out of sight, Kee slid the door open just far enough for them to squeeze through. Together they crept along the narrow space between the wall and stacks of shipping containers, timing their actions to the movements of the workers. They made slow progress toward the exterior wall. Through the door they could see that the sun would be setting soon, giving them the cover of darkness, but the transport unit looked like it might be full and ready to lift off before then.

The pair of rebels crept closer to the last pallet before the door. Kee stole a look at Ren who looked like he was only still conscious through pure force of will, then she peered around the edge of the containers. The Cardassian civilian who looked to be in charge began approving a report on a pad.

“I think they’re wrapping it up, we need to move, soon.” She muttered to Ren so quietly that he’d have to read her lips. She turned her attention back to the workers. One last large stack of boxes was being guided toward the transport on an anti-grav sled. Kee reached back blindly to grasp Ren’s arm and as the stack passed between them and the workers they ran alongside it, out the door and dropped off the side of the ramp to the ground.

She paused only a moment, deciding what to do next. Then they crouch-ran with their backs tight up against the underside of the transport. When they could go no further using the transport as cover she stopped and looked at Ren. They were going to need to run at top speed into the woods and she wanted to make sure he could do it in his condition.

“I’m ready.” He told her.

“Ok…” She mentally ticked off a couple of seconds, “Go.” They dashed out from under their cover towards the relative safety of the woods, Kee urging him on.

“Hey!” Someone from inside the warehouse called out. They’d been spotted. A few seconds later phaser blasts hit the ground next to them. Still running, she turned and fired back with one hand, the other still clutched around Ren’s arm. At last they reached the edge of the forest and tore into the underbrush. They skidded down a steep hill and wound around trees and boulders finally diving into a stand of large ferns. Ren ended up flat on his back and Kee face down next to him both gasping for breath. The frons of the ferns around them arced over their heads, effectively concealing them in the dim dusk.

Soldiers rushed by, close enough that she could have reached out and grabbed one of them. They laid motionless, carefully controlling their breathing until the Cardassians moved on.

Heart pounding, she suppressed an absurd burst of laughter. When she was sure they were all out of ear shot she sat part way up, reached for the dermal regenerator again and without a word pulled open his shirt to finish healing the rest of his wounds. She worked slowly and silently in the dark, carefully concealing the light from the instrument.

When she was finished, Ren took it from her, and placed his finger under her chin. He gently turned her face to the right and raised the dermal regenerator to her jaw to heal the bruise where the soldier had struck her earlier. Her skin tingled as it did its work and when he was done he let his arm drop. The dermal regenerator tumbled out of his hand, but she retrieved it.

In the moonlight she could just see his half-lidded eyes. The escape had been draining for him in his condition. She searched her memory for bits of advice from her mother. For blood loss she needed to keep him hydrated until more could be done…

\- - -

“We managed to hide in the woods until we could rendezvous with the rest of the cell the next day. Ren had lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion.” She had, of course, glossed over or entirely left out the worst details. Her mind recalled the image of the two of them sitting together as her blood flowed directly into his veins using an improvised device Ilwea kept in his pack for such occasions.

As she finished her story her friends sat in stunned silence for several seconds before Jack began, “How are we your equal?” He said. “I mean, that is so far beyond anything any of us could do, yet we’re somehow on the same level as you? You should be out there with an officer’s rank already.”

When the others murmured their agreement, she brushed it off. “I just did what I had to do to survive. Besides, the way the war’s going, we’ll all be out there soon enough.” They didn’t seem convinced, “Can we talk about something else?” She asked.


	7. STARFLEET: 2374, YEAR 3

Cadet Luce was starting to wear out, but Kee wasn’t about to let up on him. He’d insisted that he was going to beat her this time, but she couldn’t let that happen. She had a reputation, after all. She gave him a chance to stand up but instead he turned over and tried to sweep his legs under hers. She jumped back as he rolled back to his feet.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Commander Baker talking to another officer who had just came in. That other officer is what had caught her attention. It had been seven years, but she’d recognize him anywhere. She’d only known him as Laru.

Pulling her back to the present, Luce struck her in the sternum with the heel of his hand. He followed through with the movement knocking her off her feet and onto her back.

She bounded back to her feet and lifted her arms to the side, “What the hell, Luce?”

He shrugged, “Clock’s still tickin’. _You_ weren’t paying attention.” With that he rushed forward to grabbed her shoulders and lifted her up, pinning her against the forcefield that separated them from the other pairs of sparring cadets. She lifted her arms between them and knocked his hands to the side and off of her shoulders, then punched his chest. She threw another punch but he dodged to the side, her concentration had already been thrown off. Her momentum caused her to overshoot and he grabbed her upper arm, spun her around and threw her against the forcefield again. He moved so fast that she found herself face down on the mat. He had her right arm twisted behind her and his chest pressed against her back, using his entire body weight to pin her down.

Kee refrained from swearing, out loud at least. With seconds ticking away until she had officially lost the match, she twisted and pushed against his weight, but he had her arm locked behind her back. For one last, desperate effort she arched her body and wrapped her legs backwards around his. With her new leverage, she twisted and flipped him off of her but he held her arm tight. Pain shot through her shoulder as connective tissue was stretched past its limit and began to tear, but she ignored it. She took the fraction of a second where he was on his back, stunned, to twist his outstretched arm which caused him to roll onto his side. Then she pressed her knee against his upper back and pulled his arm tight. At the count of five she’d won.

Just as she backed up to let him stand up a chime sounded, signaling that the session was over. Luce staggered to his feet, but Kee remained on her knees for a moment, holding her arm close to her body. Her shoulder throbbed painfully.

Luce offered her a hand and helped her stand up. “Nice one!”

“Thanks. You almost had me.” She said, smiling at her partner and clutching her arm again.

“Come on, I’ll walk you to the infirmary.” He said as friendly as though they’d been simply playing a card game for the last half hour.

“Thanks, but it can wait. I see someone I have to talk to.” She nodded toward the pair of officers and Luce turned away toward the locker room. His offer was probably just a thinly veiled excuse to get some of his own injuries tended too anyway.

Holding her right elbow close to her ribs to lessen the pain in her shoulder, Kee put on her most neutrally pleasant expression and walked over to them. That mission of theirs had never shown up in Starfleet records, and she wasn’t surprised. It had always struck her as an off-the-books kind of mission.

“Ah. Cadet, we were just talking about you.” Baker said when she got close enough.

Kee couldn’t keep a tiny smirk off of her lips as she turned to the man whose pips identified him as a Lieutenant-commander. “You don’t say.”

“This is Jeff Riggs from Starfleet Intelligence. He’s requested your presence on an urgent mission.”

She regarded the man who she’d so deeply trusted long ago. The years had aged him a bit, put just a hint of grey into his hair. And his nose looked distinctly human now. But his kind, genuine eyes hadn’t changed. She supposed the mission wasn’t optional, and details weren’t forthcoming. “When do we leave?” She asked.

“Immediately.” Riggs said. “The Cochrane is standing by for transport.”

Immediately meant _immediately_. Kee nodded a curt good-bye to Baker as he turned away.

He tapped his commbadge, “Riggs to Cochrane, two to beam up.” The Academy gym faded away to be replaced by a small transporter room.

As soon as they materialized, the transporter operator said, “Bridge, they’re on board.”

_“Acknowledged.”_

“We’ll stop by sickbay to get that shoulder looked at.” Riggs said as he stepped off of the platform.

Kee suddenly remembered that her shoulder hurt and followed him in odd silence through the corridors to sickbay. Fortunately, on a small ship, they didn’t have far to go.

A nurse who introduced herself as Lieutenant Flood had her sit on a bio bed and began treating the injury to her shoulder. 

Kee finally broke the silence when Flood stepped away for a minute. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

Riggs let out a short breath through his nose. “There were times when that probably would have been the case.” He looked her in the eye, “You tried to warn us about what we’d find down there. It wasn’t anything we could have imagined.” He shook his head, “For you to grow up there…”

“Don’t.” She waved off whatever else he was going to say. She didn’t need sympathy. “You didn’t seem surprised to find me here.”

“Actually, I’ve kept an eye on the Academy enrollment manifest. I was pleased to see your name there a couple of years ago.”

Kee laughed, “And I suppose you think you had something to do with that?”

“Well…” He shrugged.

“Arrogant!” She teased, laughing. “So, now you had to come find me for… old times sake?”

He chuckled slightly. “Actually I hadn’t intended to make contact at all until something came up and I knew you’d be my best choice for this mission.” Flood returned to finish treating Kee’s shoulder, cutting off anything else Riggs might have said.

Flood finished up, “You’re free to go.”

“Thank you.” She told the nurse, then looked down at herself, still wearing her Academy physical training uniform which consisted of grey, calf-length leggings, and a grey tank top with a security-gold stripe across her chest. “I suppose I should go replicate a proper uniform.”

“I’ll walk you to your quarters.” He offered.

She slid off the biobed, “I can find my way.”

“Ok. I’ll be by in about an hour to brief you on the mission.”

* * *

Jeff sat across a table from Kee while he briefed her on the mission. Mal Kreuger, who’d been his SI partner for nearly ten years, had been in deep cover within the Orian Syndicate for the past three years working on a man named Kodun. They’d lost contact with her, which wasn’t entirely unusual, but it had been over two months now and she still hadn’t reestablished contact.

He needed Kee… Cadet Norv, he corrected himself… to accompany him to find out what had happened. There were other agents he could have chosen for this mission, but he knew her to be someone capable of quick thinking and who’d be willing to do whatever was necessary to complete the mission. He had no idea what they’d come up against, so he needed someone like her. He wasn’t sure if she’d like the next detail he was about to share with her. “… and for our cover to appear natural, I need you to pose as my _traveling companion._ ”

She didn’t flinch, only nodded her understanding. “Alright, so, does your persona have a particular _taste?_ ”

He was taken back for a moment, “Uh, no. Just replicate whatever clothes you’re comfortable with.”

Kee laughed, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “You Humans have such a hard time with this stuff, don’t you?”

He laughed nervously. He’d been on more undercover missions that he’d have thought possible during his twelve-year career at SI. Had assumed many identities over the years, and a few of them had included the type he was going to take on for this mission. These were the roles that made him the most uncomfortable. He’d been raised with Federation values regarding gender. Growing up, it had never crossed his mind to see women as anything but equals. To ask a capable partner to pose as a sex object was nothing less than revolting. After SI recruited him straight out of the Academy, he’d learned quickly that his beliefs weren’t shared in much of the galaxy. His experience on Bajor, the things he’d seen happen, stood out as one of those moments.

“Don’t worry about me.” She assured him. “I’ve done it before.”

He’d have to ask about that later. “Ideally we’ll track down Mal and that’ll be the end of it, but if something’s happened to her, we’ll need to locate a data storage device that will contain all of her mission logs.” He handed her a padd that outlined the details of their aliases. He would be operating under the name Alec Levy and she’d be Naco Iciya.

* * *

Jeff waited for Kee in the transporter room. They’d be beaming down to a commerce hub to catch a series of transports that would take them in a haphazard rout to their destination that would be difficult to trace back to Starfleet. He pulled at his collar. Posing as a wealthy businessman in this region meant costly, tailored clothes that included a few too many layers for his taste.

When the doors opened and Kee walked in, he had to use every bit of his SI training to control his reaction. She looked like an entirely different person. Her hair curled around her face in soft waves, her green eyes were dramatically accented with color. She wore a gold sequined dress that clung to her trim, athletic frame. It was low-cut enough to show that she wasn’t wearing any kind of undergarment, and short enough that it couldn’t have possibly covered more than the essentials.

His eyes darted back to her face where he found her red lips turned up in a familiar lopsided smirk at his clearly obvious reaction. Then she turned and he could see that the back of the dress dipped down even farther than the front, showing off a beautiful black tattoo that extended across her entire back with tendrils that looped and curled around each other. He swallowed hard and made sure he was properly composed before she turned back around.

“Is this sufficient?” She asked.

“You could have put more effort into it, but it’ll do.” He teased as they stepped onto the transporter pad. “Energize.” He said before she could come back with some snarky response.

* * *

They had traveled with little to no rest for over thirty-six hours, finally reaching Farius Prime, which was a major location for the Orian Syndicate. They beamed down to a hotel in Selo Port and Kee waited while Jeff used his thumbprint to unlock the door to their room. Once inside, they noted that their luggage had already been transported in ahead of them. Kee looked around, it was a small, single room with a replicator, plus a restroom. One thing stood out, there was only one bed.

Jeff stared at the bed for a moment. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

She back-handed a friendly slap on his shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re both adults.” Then she stretched her sore neck, “Any idea if we have a sonic shower in there or water?”

He gestured graciously toward the tiny room off to the side, “Go right ahead and do some recon on that.”

* * *

The next morning, Kee bent over to secure the strap on her shoe. She’d chosen the sexiest shoes that were practical. Something with a nice stable heel in case she had to kick some… she sighed, Starfleet was really trying to get her to clean up her language.

Jeff emerged from the restroom dressed as a wealthy business man. She tried to ignore how handsome he looked and ribbed him instead. “You were snoring last night.”

“You were cursing in your sleep.”

“When I _could_ sleep with all that snoring.” She shot back.

“Well, I’m the ranking officer on this mission so that’s just too bad for you.” He teased.

Kee stood up from adjusting her shoe, “Yeah, well, how about this?” Then she presented him with an obscene hand gesture.

He laughed, “Insubordination! I could have you court marshaled.”

Kee raised her hands to her sides shrugging, “Well, it was a short career.”

“Undone by your own stubbornness.” He mockingly mused.

“Somehow I always knew it would end that way.” Kee couldn’t contain her laughter any longer and Jeff joined in.

Once they had composed themselves, he offered her his elbow. “Shall we?”

Kee slipped into character as she wrapped her arm around his.

* * *

Mal’s original contact had been a Yridian at a bar here in Selo Port called Daq'si Eraha, named after its proprietor, and her coded status updates indicated she’d maintained regular contact with him. Jeff walked in with Kee on his arm and strolled up to the bar, noting that there were three Yridian’s in the place. When the bar tender, presumably Eraha, came near he ordered for them both, “Starduster and a silken sunrise.” Before he could move away to fill their orders he said, “Would you happen to know where I could find a Yridian named Rabta.”

“My customers prefer to keep their privacy.” He grumbled.

Kee pressed against the bar to accentuate her cleavage and leaned across into Eraha’s personal space. “We were hoping to do business with him.” She said with a velvety soft voice and sweet smile, “I’d really appreciate it if you could point him out to us.” She was good.

Eraha smiled back at her and indicated a Yridian sitting in a corner booth then moved the back of his hand to brush it against her arm but she gracefully maneuvered away.

Jeff wrapped his arm possessively around her waist, glaring back at the barkeep and they moved away from the bar toward Rabta’s table. For her part, Kee didn’t flinch even slightly at the intimate touch. She really had done this before. They neared the booth and he sat down and scooted over to allow Kee to sit and keep a subtle eye on the room.

“I don’t know anything about anything or anybody.” Rabta said without looking up.

“That’s alright. I just thought we could get to know each other a bit.” Jeff said smoothly as the waiter placed two drinks in front of them. Once he’d walked away, Jeff continued, “We’re looking for someone you’ve met with. Her name’s Kaylynn Mathis.” Mal’s alias.

He swallowed hard, “I don’t know her.” He said too quickly.

“Look. I’m a friend of hers.” He said in the friendliest tone he could manage. “I know she’s been meeting with you. I need to find her.”

He looked nervously between the two of them. Kee reached out and placed her hand on top of his wrinkled, thumbless hand. “Please?” She said sweetly.

Rabta stared down into his drink. “I’m not saying that I ever met with her... but I heard that she fell out of favor with Kodun. Something about prying into things that weren’t her business.”

“Do you know where she is now?” Jeff asked.

“I heard he sold her to Orian slavers. There was a ship that passed through here about a month ago.”

A knot twisted his stomach. Mal was a lot like Kee, willing to do anything for the mission, but for her to be sold as a slave… “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

“No I haven’t!” He said quickly. “I never said anything to you!”

“Of course.” He agreed and stood up with Kee. He dropped some currency on the table next to their untouched drinks and walked out of the bar with a heavy feeling of dread.

* * *

It didn’t take much digging to track down the ship Rabta had indicated. The Torek made regular rounds in this part of space and the one stop they made regularly was an unnamed trading post orbiting a planet in the Chi Ceti system. Kee had quickly assembled their equipment while he’d booked passage.

With more than a few hours to kill, they replicated some dinner in their small cabin. After eating the first part of the meal in silence she asked. “How’d you end up in SI anyway?”

“I was never especially close to my parents. They were Starfleet officers, usually assigned to deep space missions, so I grew up mostly in boarding schools on Earth. They both died in the line of duty. I was an only child and never really knew any of my extended family.” Kee studies him for a long moment with an unreadable expression. He suddenly felt uncertain, “Well, ah, perfect candidate for an SI NOC agent. They recruited me right out of the Academy.”

She blinked away whatever was on her mind and asked, “As a NOC, how do you have a Starfleet rank? Is it real?”

He shifted uncomfortably, that wasn’t an easy answer. “Yes and no.”

Her brow furrowed, “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he started slowly, “on one hand, if something goes wrong I could be disavowed. But on the other hand, _you_ still have to follow my orders.”

She chuckled lightly and uttered a casual curse while they fell into an easy silence.

He finally decided to ask something that he’d been curious about for two days. “So, what’s with the tattoo?” He said between bites, “I seem to remember you had a scar in that same place seven years ago.”

She took a moment to finish her bite, “There’s an artist in Dahkur that does them to cover scars. I had it done about four years ago.”

“What happened?” He asked.

A darkness passed across her face, she shook her head, “I did something stupid. Didn’t follow orders.” She stabbed a piece of food with her fork, “We were lucky that nobody was killed because of it.”

He let the matter drop, it was clear that the event had had a huge impact on her. From what he knew of her, he could hardly imagine her of all people not following orders. Her Academy record was spotless with nothing but praise in her evaluations. A lesson learned, then. She gathered the food on her plate into a pile and picked up another piece with her fork. It smelled a lot better than what he’d replicated. “What is that?” He asked.

“ _Vukyehl._ Try some.” She pushed the plate towards him to pick up a piece. Too late, she remembered to warn him, “It’s spicy!”

But he had already taken the bite. The burn was instant and intense. It felt like his taste buds were being burned off. His eyes watered while he did his best to keep a dignified reaction.

She tore off a piece of bread and handed it to him. “Sorry. This will help.”

When he’d recovered a bit, he said, “Wow, that lingers.”

Kee smiled wide, “Yeah, it’s a good one.”

He blew air through his lips as though that would stop the burning. “You’d think I’d have gotten used to that back when I was on Bajor.”

Kee laughed, “I keep forgetting to warn people when I share.”

“That’s an interesting thing we noticed back then.”

“What?” She asked, taking another bite without a bit of reaction to the spice.

“Even when there was so little food available, the people we encountered were always willing to share what they had.” He recalled a number of families that had taken them in for a few nights here and there. He’d wished he could do something for them right then and there, but at the time he and his partners were the ones in need of charity.

She shrugged, pulling him out of the memory. “The only way to survive was to rely on each other.”

“I think it goes deeper than that. It’s a beautiful little bit of your culture that you were able to hang on to.”

“The Prophets teach us to be generous.” She said reverently.

He had to take a moment to process what she said. He’d met plenty of Bajorans that were downright militant in their religious beliefs. You could hardly say two words to them without a full onslaught about the Prophets. But Kee had never struck him as a believer. “I’ve never heard you talk about Them.”

“I respect that people have different belief systems. I don’t like to shove my own religion in their faces.”

“That’s not typical of most Bajorans.”

“Oh, I’m just as opinionated as the next Bajoran. I’ll argue with you until the leaves turn. But I don’t expect to make you agree with me.”

“How do you reconcile your beliefs with what you had to do during the occupation?” He asked, genuinely curious.

“I don’t.” She said flatly. “Not really. There were those of us who sacrificed their lives and others who sacrificed our souls. There’s no excuse, no justification. I knew what I was doing. I made a choice to do what was necessary for Bajor, and I confirmed that choice with every life I took. It’s up to the Prophets to decide whether it was right or wrong.”

“You hope that your belief is enough to overcome the bad?”

“Something like that. But there’s a difference between ‘belief’ and ‘faith’. Everyone now _believes_ that the Prophets exist, but to have faith that they care for us and are guiding us is a different matter.”

“You still have faith in them, even after the Occupation?”

“Just because something bad happens, doesn’t mean we throw away our faith. Sometimes bad things happen to prevent something worse. Sometimes they happen because of a choice that someone made. Sometimes they happen for no reason at all. There are a hundred reasons bad things can happen to people who don’t deserve it. The best we can do is try to grow through it, past it and from it. As gods, the Prophets guide us in all of that.”

“But there’s no evidence that they’re actually divine.”

“Isn’t there?” She paused, “Seems pretty logical to me that a group of noncorporeal beings that exist outside of time could communicate knowledge of what _we_ consider the future to us tens of thousands of years ago.”

“That doesn’t make them gods.”

“And that’s where faith comes in.”

“There’s a pretty big difference between observable evidence and the supernatural.”

“I don’t see those two things as mutually exclusive. You see, no one has one-hundred percent of the truth of the universe. Not religion, not science, no one. We each have a little piece of truth, and the important thing is that we’re faithful to that one piece we have.”

The concept took him back, he’d never heard a Bajoran say something like that. “If someone had said _that_ to me back then, it might just have convinced me.”

She bit her lip for a second, “Many Bajorans would consider what I just said to be heretical.”

He nodded and decided to change the subject, “Then maybe it’s safer to stick to the subject of spicy food next time I’m there.”

She laughed, “Actually, debates about food spice can get quite heated at times!” No pun intended?

He laughed too, “Are there no safe topics?”

“Not really. No.”

* * *

Kee and Jeff disembarked their transport into a chaotic scene. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the noise of barter, the smell of too many bodies in one space or the stifling heat. Judging by the haze in the air, the environmental systems weren’t keeping up.

Between the jostling bodies, she could make out various exotic items for sale spread out in booths or on tables and a few times caught site of something illegal being slipped covertly from seller to buyer. Jeff began winding his way through the crowd, keeping her arm looped through his elbow to avoid getting separated. She’d long ago lost the notion of personal space. Back in the Resistance, there was no such thing and, it seemed, here either. Body parts of all different types bumped against her as people maneuvered through the crowd to purchase whatever they were here for.

As she and Jeff made their way toward the rear of the room where the slave trade would be, he placed his hand low on her back to keep her close. Her bare skin tingled where he touched her. But the feeling disappeared quickly when they got where they were going. The sight of sentient beings locked in cages twisted her stomach. It took every bit of her discipline to control the reaction.

Jeff began showing Mal’s picture to huge, bald Orion males that were in charge of the trade. They were a lot bigger than any opponent she’d ever fought, she wondered if she’d be able to take one on if she had to. The third one, who had a nasty-looking piece of jewelry pierced through his eyebrow, pointed them toward another one, calling him Ngolon.

Jeff thanked him, but the sound was lost in the noise of the place.

Fortunately, the area where they found Ngolon was a bit quieter. Jeff approached him with her picture. “I’m looking for this woman. Have you seen her come through here?”

Ngolon glanced at the picture with an unreadable expression, “What’s it to you?”

“Kaylynn is Iciya’s… counterpart. She was stolen from me about a month ago.”

Ngolon’s expression changed from indifference to unease. “Do you have proof of ownership?”

“Unfortunately, no. Has she been here?”

His manor softened, if that was possible for such a huge being. “She sold almost immediately.” He actually looked embarrassed. “I apologize, I’m not in the habit of dealing in stolen merchandise. If she’d been properly id-tagged, I’d have held her for you.”

Jeff let a bit of disappointment slip. “Can you give me the name of the person to purchased her?”

“That is confidential information. What I will give you is a discount as a way of apology. Pick one out and I’ll give her to you at cost.”

“I appreciate that, but she has certain… unique skills. I’d really like to get her back.”

“Unfortunately that’s not going to be possible. The man who purchased her was back here less than a week later looking for a refund. It seems she was a bit too much trouble for him and he had to do away with her.”

With her arm still hooked around his, she could feel him tense, but no trace of distress showed on his face, only a look of irritated disappointment.

When Jeff didn’t respond, Ngolon continued. “Please, feel free to look around. Like I said, I’ll give you a discount, just keep this business of stolen merchandise between us.”

“Thanks, I’ll let you know.” Jeff managed to say and they began meandering casually between pens of slaves waiting to be sold, eventually making their way back to their transport.

* * *

Jeff managed to keep his composure long enough to return to their room, but as soon as the door shut behind them he threw the padd he was holding across the room. He dropped into a chair and bent over to bury his face in his hands and ran them through his hair.

He was certain if the situation was reversed, Mal wouldn’t allow herself an emotional breakdown. She’d always mastered emotional detachment better than he did. He couldn’t bear to think of what the last few weeks of her life had been like. She was a good agent, a good partner, she deserved so much better. He worked to control the feelings surging up inside him and could vaguely hear Kee move closer to him. Finally, he said, “Emotional detachment is a lot harder than it seems when you first sign up.”

Kee sat down next to him in the other chair. “I know.” She said softly, taking his hand in hers. The gesture felt comforting even though her fingers were ice cold.

He knew she understood. He looked up at her. Damn, she was beautiful. Her face was only centimeters from his. He leaned in to touch his lips to hers but caught himself at the last moment and turned away.

She turned away and stood, moving to put some distance between them. “So, what’s next?” She asked, keeping him focused. Just like Mal always used to.

He ran a hand through his hair again, “We need to find her mission logs. They’d probably be back at Kodun’s property. She left a coded clue at the end of her message each time she checked in giving the present location of the data crystal. As long as she didn’t move it after her last message, we should be able to find it.”

“So we just have to get ourselves into Kodun’s place.”

* * *

They returned to the Farius system, but instead of Farius Prime, they made their way to one of the outer planets where they’d find a small, domed colony on an unnamed Class N planet. The combination of hydrogen predominance in the atmosphere and the white color of the Class F star, made the air surrounding the planet take on a hazy purple tint.

The colony just happened to be owned by Kodun himself and was his supposed primary residence. Just traveling to the colony was expensive enough to keep out the rabble, then yet another fee had to be paid upon entry. Not to mention lodging and food. Kee wasn’t quite sure where Jeff kept coming with all of this cash.

Before leaving their hotel, they’d hidden a device in her small clutch purse that would allow them to copy Kodun’s personal access chip. Assuming one of them could manage to acquire it.

The planet’s purple, vaporous atmosphere outside the dome gave the evening streets a dream-like quality. They strode confidently to a bar owned by a Ferengi named Prash. According to Mal’s transmissions, it was a favorite place for Kodun. When they stood in front of the Lethean bouncer at the door, he folded his arms across his chest. “You’re not on the list.” He said flatly.

Jeff wordlessly passed a handful of money to him. Growing up, Kee would never have imagined throwing around that much money.

Without consulting the padd in his hand, the bouncer said, “My mistake.” And stepped aside to allow them to enter.

The inside was busy, but not crowded. They sat down at a small, round table and waited to have their orders taken while glancing around the room for Kodun.

A Bolian waiter approached and stood near them without a word.

“Two Maraltian Seev-ales.” Jeff told them.

Kee had warned him that she was a lightweight when it came to alcohol, she just didn’t particularly care for it. Fortunately, SI had spent a considerable amount of resources toward developing an injection to counteract the effects of alcohol on their agents, enabling them to blend in without losing control.

Jeff leaned his elbows onto the table, “That’s Kodun there.”

She followed his quick glance toward a large, semi-circle couch in an adjacent part of the club where a well-dressed Farian was lounging with a pair of women of the night. Two more Farian males stood as body guards nearby. 

The waiter returned with their drinks and the two of them remained at their table. Best not to appear too eager. Kee took a sip of her drink and suppressed a grimace. The drink had a distinctly fermented flavor that reminded her of the nearly spoiled food she’d had to eat in the refugee camp when she was a child. But, she’d done far more distasteful things in her life, so she continued to sip at it.

Around the time she’d almost finished the nauseating drink, one of Kodun’s bodyguards approached them. “Mister Kodun would like to speak with you.”

“Alright.” Jeff said casually and they stood to follow him. When they neared the second bodyguard they stopped them and began patting Jeff down. When they were done, Kee held her arms out to the sides to allow herself to be searched as well. One checked her body while the other peeked into her purse, but the chances of him finding the device hidden there was remote.

Finally satisfied, they handed her back her purse and stepped aside to allow them to approach Kodun.

“Tell me what it is you’re selling.” He said in a bored tone of voice.

“What makes you think I’m selling anything?” Jeff asked.

“This is a private club, I don’t recognize you. You’ve been trying to make it look like you weren’t watching me for the last half hour. There’s something you want to sell me.”

Kee wondered if that was Jeff’s plan all along or if they’d just gotten lucky. He just looked around nervously, “This may not be the best time.”

“Mr…” Kodun prompted.

“Levy.”

“Mr. Levy. I don’t like games. If there’s business you want to discuss, just come out with it. Then you can be on you way and I can enjoy the rest of my evening.”

He put on a salesman face, “Have you ever heard of Zeite crystals?” The crystals often appeared in jewelry, machinery and computer consoles. But what Kodun would be most interested in was their use as the beam focusing component of energy weapons.

“Of course.”

“Would you believe that I have a source of Zeite with a ninety-nine-point-three percent purity?”

Kodun scoffed, “Nobody’s ever been able to supply anything higher than ninety-seven-point-six percent.”

Jeff flashed that disarming smile of his, “Until now.”

Kodun pondered him for a long moment without saying anything.

Jeff gestured to the couch he was sitting on, “May I?”

He prodded one of his escorts to move to the other side so Jeff could sit next to him. “At least until I figure out whether you’re able to provide what you promise or if you’re just an exceptional liar.”

Kee seated herself next to Jeff and let him deal with Kodun. His job was two-fold, size him up and gain his trust. Her job was to scrutinize his associates. The two muscles were one thing, clearly who they appeared to be, but the women weren’t necessarily just prostitutes.

All security cadets were required to pass classes regarding micro expressions, how to read them and how not to display them. After observing them for some time, she was fairly certain that one of them was just what she seemed, but the other was not. She eyed Kee intently. Kee hoped she, herself, wasn’t so easily made.

After discussing the product to a depth that made Kodun comfortable that Jeff really was some kind of Zeite crystal expert he leaned over to her, “Iciya, darling, would you go get me a drink from the bar?”

Without replying, Kee stood up to comply but he held onto her hand. When she turned back to him he tugged gently on her hand to get her to bend down to him. When she was close enough, he kissed her gently on one cheek while slipping something into her other hand. Ignoring the chills his touch sent across her skin, she palmed the hexagonal object, stood and walked away toward the bar.

By the time she got to the bar, she’d identified the object as an access chip and she slipped it into her purse. While she was waiting for the bartender, a large Palamarian on a stool turned toward her. “Well hello…”

“Not interested.” She said politely.

“How much would it cost me for you to be interested?”

“Back off.” She said firmly.

“I’m just looking for someone to brighten up my evening.” He insisted, beginning to raise his voice.

Kee glanced around to be sure no one was watching and she jabbed her elbow into a weak spot on his neck. He immediately slumped forward onto the bar. She feigned concern, “I think he’s had a bit too much.” She told the bartender.

The bartender waved his security goons over to remove the unconscious Palamarian. “I’m so sorry, what can I get you?”

“A supernova.” She said, choosing the drink that would take the longest to mix that she could think of.

“Right away.”

While the bartender moved away to mix the drink, Kee dug around in her purse, carefully slipping the access chip into the duplication device, then pulled out some coins to pay for the drinks.

Kee tuned out Jeff’s conversation in her earpiece. Some physical distance from him would do her well, even for just a few minutes. She felt like she was losing her hold on reality, and slipping dangerously deep into their roles. In another place and another time she would have been perfectly capable of dealing with her attraction to him, but the physical closeness demanded by their cover was blurring the lines. She had to keep reminding herself to focus on the mission.

* * *

“You do understand that I’ll have to have my people check out your story before we can begin doing business together.” Kodun said.

“Of course.” Jeff said smoothly. “I wouldn’t do business with anyone who would be so sloppy not to.”

“I’m hosting a private party tomorrow evening for some of my associates. My people should have cleared you by then and we can take the opportunity to celebrate our new affiliation.”

Jeff only nodded indifferently, even though that was exactly what he’d been hoping for, he needed to appear aloof. He found his attention drifting toward Kee. She was leaning against the bar waiting for the drink. She reminded him so much of Mal. Both so dedicated and relentless. He thought they would have made a great team and imagined for a moment the two of them charging off headlong into danger. He caught a thin smile trying to creep onto his lips. He was beginning to find it hard to focus on the mission. What was wrong with him?

“She’s good.” Kodun said, pulling his attention back. “Don’t see many Bajorans in this line of work anymore.”

Jeff kept his face turned toward her to prevent Kodun from seeing the look of disgust that flashed across his face, fully aware that she’d probably heard every word. “She’s very good.” He said truthfully.

“Tomorrow evening, you’re welcome to sample from my escorts if you’re willing to share also.”

It took him an extra moment to process what he’d said. Jeff scrambled for an excuse that wouldn’t offend him and put on a slightly embarrassed expression. “I’m afraid I’m a bit possessive.”

He laughed deeply, “She _must_ be good.”

Just then he saw that Kee was walking back with his drink. When she reached them, she handed it to him with the access chip concealed underneath. He slipped it into his palm and began watching for an opportunity to tuck it back where he’d found it.

In an attempt at relaxation, he reached over and rested his hand on her thigh, realizing too late that it was a mistake, but he couldn’t pull away without looking unnatural. Her soft, flawless skin immediately demanded his full attention and he felt his control slipping. It took everything he had to maintain his composure.

* * *

Kee reclined seductively against Jeff with her left arm draped around his shoulder. She watched the room for any indication of danger while he finished up working on Kodun. After a while, he reached down and placed his hand gently on her thigh. She forced herself not to show any reaction, but her body responded appropriately.

In her mind, she imagined his hand sliding farther up and under her dress. With her heart pounding, she forced herself out of the brief fantasy. What was wrong with her? She pasted a pleasantly neutral, even slightly bored expression on her face while she continued her vigil. It was only part of their cover, she reminded herself. She caressed his ear with her left hand absentmindedly and vowed not to fall too deeply into the role.

* * *

His lips were against hers as they neared their room. Kee knew she should pull away but couldn’t bring herself to. He pressed her against the wall next to the door of their room, lifting her almost off her feet and continued kissing her. Her heart pounded as he pulled her close. He fumbled with the thumb-pad, but finally managed to open the door and they nearly tumbled inside.

She shuffled backward into the room without breaking contact with his lips. She tossed her purse onto the table a little too hard and it went sliding off the other side. It didn’t matter, she grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists, then turned and shoved him against the wall, continuing to press her body against his.

His hands were around her waist, then on her hips, pulling her tight against him. He began kissing along her jaw then her neck and her shoulder. She tipped her head back to allow him access. His hands slipped further down her body and pulled her tight skirt up to her hips. She responded by coiling her leg around his. Finally, they stumbled toward the bed, removing pieces of clothing as they went.

* * *

Kee awoke slowly to the feeling of sheets on her naked skin. She squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered why. A string of every curse word she knew passed through her mind. She swallowed hard, this was a mistake. She’d lost control, compromised herself and possibly their mission. And with a superior officer, no less! What must he think of her? She turned over carefully so as not to wake him, she needed more time to think. But that prospect disappeared when she saw that his eyes were already open.

He cleared his throat nervously, “Good morning.” Sounding like he’d been awake for some time.

She sighed, “Yeah.” When he didn’t say more she began, “Last night…”

But then he broke in, “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know, I must have gotten swept away in the role. I’ve never done this with someone under my command. I didn’t mean to manipulate you or make you feel like…” His words tumbled out so fast it was clear he’d been thinking about it for a long time.

She held up a hand to stop him. “’Manipulate’ me?” Her temper flared at the suggestion.

“Yeah.”

She sat part way up, thankful that the sheet came with her. “I choose when to have sex, nobody manipulates me into anything.” True, she’d lost control, but it was her control to lose. She pulled the sheet to the side to reveal an almost invisible scar under her left breast. “I got this from a Cardassian soldier who wanted to ‘hire’ me. I told him no, he insisted. I suggested that he go take care of the matter himself. He didn’t appreciate the recommendation, so he stabbed me. Ended up with a punctured lung for it.” She looked into his face. “Nobody manipulates me into sex.” She dropped back down onto the bed. “Doesn’t matter whether or not it was a mistake.” 

“You think it was a mistake?” He asked.

She answered with an affirmative sound.

“Good. Because I’m pretty sure it was. This could compromise our interactions and blow our cover.”

“Don’t worry, I can do it.” She said, hoping this mission would remain off the books when they got back.

* * *

Jeff studied the layout of Kodun’s mansion. An index of the estate included a sizable collection of Klingon memorabilia, which caught his attention. Mal’s last message had ended with the word “Gr'oth” only. He doubted she would have been so obvious as to hide the data crystal under, around or behind an item specifically relating to the IKS Gr'oth, but perhaps its captain, Koloth. Or the D7 class of Klingon vessels. He pulled up any information he could find on both. _Mal, why do you have to be so damn cryptic._ He thought.

While the computer pulled up the requested information he glanced at Kee out of the corner of his eye. She was working on the copied access chip, removing any data fragments left behind by the copying procedure. She tapped at the interface with her left hand and jotted down notes onto a padd using a stylus with her right. Suddenly he became aware of something odd about what she was writing. “Are you aware you’re writing in three different languages?” He leaned closer to see the sloppily scribbled Bajoran, Cardassian and Standard characters.

She blinked at the padd as though she had not realized it and laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, that happens sometimes.” She shot him a smirk, “Makes it hard for nosy people to read it, at least.”

He laughed, “Sorry, that was not my intent. It just caught my eye. I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

“It just depends on where my head is at any given moment.”

“I guess it makes sense with three languages rolling around in there.”

“Four, actually.” She corrected him.

“Four? What else?”

“When I was a child there was a monk who, for some reason I’ve never understood, decided that I needed to know Ancient Bajoran.” She shrugged. “All Bajorans know some key phrases that are used in religious observances, but he wanted me to be able to read and speak it fluently.” She shook her head, laughing. “Because I’ve found so many opportunities to make use of it.” She said sarcastically, but then scolded herself, “But I shouldn’t complain. We weren’t supposed to learn to read and write at all.”

“Seems like you managed. I don’t think I’ve ever met an illiterate Bajoran.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “Anyway, I didn’t mean to distract you.”

She went back to her work. She seemed to have put their mishap from the previous night behind her, but he knew her well enough by now to know it was only an act. She would complete the mission, he was confident of that, but afterword there was a conversation they’d have to have.

He could only guess at her motives for doing that they did, and, frankly, he was still puzzling over his. He didn’t have feelings for her and doubted she had them for him. She was beautiful, certainly, but he’d worked with beautiful women before. She was so much like Mal, was that it? He and Mal had never been able to act on the feelings they once had for each other. Eventually they’d moved past it and settled into a strictly professional relationship. Or so he’d thought. And now she was gone, and there was Kee.

He shook himself out of the reverie, there was work to be done. Later they would trade places, she would memorize the layout of the mansion and he would confirm her work on the access chip. Until then, though he had some reading to do.

* * *

After arriving at Kodun’s extravagant home, they were led down a long hallway. They were both fairly certain they knew exactly what type of ‘private party’ this was and after what happened last night, Kee was not looking forward to it. They were likely going to have to put on quite a performance to fit in. But they couldn’t exactly back out now. Prophets only knew what Kodun would do if they stood him up.

Too soon a pair of double doors were opened to them and they entered a dimly lit room, lavishly furnished and sparsely filled with couples and threesomes in various stages of intimacy. She could feel Jeff’s apprehension like a gravity well. Or maybe she was imagining it. A quick glance showed a cool, composed expression on his face.

Kodun approached them with his scantily clad female bodyguard from the previous night plus more than a few other women in comparable dress. “Levy!” He greeted them and handed Jeff a champagne glass and held his own up. “To a lucrative business venture.”

Jeff returned the gesture and drank a sip. “I take it your people have cleared me?”

“Of course. After our conversation last night, I had no doubt.” He indicated the women with him, “Are you certain you’re not interested in a temporary trade?”

He laughed nervously, “I am. I’m quite partial to Iciya’s particular skills.”

“Suit yourself.” He motioned to the room, “Make yourself at home. You’ll find maraji crystals or felicium at the bar if that’s your thing. There are private rooms available if you prefer. Please, enjoy yourself.” With that he left them alone.

“My ‘skills’ huh?” She said quietly as soon as he was out of earshot.

“Would you _rather_ have gone with him? Because you’re free to do that.”

Instead of replying, she jabbed an elbow into his ribs with a subtle movement.

They found a dark alcove where they would have a little bit of privacy. Tonight, she’d chosen a dark purple, almost black dress to be less noticeable whereas yesterday the point was to attract attention. This way, it would be slightly easier to slip away without it being obvious.

With her back to the wall he leaned toward her intimately, “We should appear as though we’re going to want one of those private rooms sometime soon.” She nodded and wrapped her arms around his back while he leaned down to kiss her. His lips on hers reminded her why she’d so easily lost control before. It felt good. Tasted good. This was not going to be easy.

In between kisses he managed to say, “Now, don’t get carried away this time.”

She couldn’t suppress a short scoff, “Shut up!”

“You shouldn’t talk to a superior officer that way.”

“Oh, now you’re going to pull rank?”

“Only if I have to.”

The two of them managed to continue their charade despite stifled snickering. As soon as she was able to regain her composure, she began scrutinizing the room. Aside from the excessive luxury, the self-indulgent drug use and the vulgar debauchery, there wasn’t much to this ‘party.’ It reminded her of what she’d heard about Cardassians and their comfort women.

Most couples didn’t seem to be concerned with privacy. Either too drunk or drugged to care. But finally, one pair headed to a recessed door in the back of the room where a servant handed them an access chip and they disappeared through the door. “Back there, to the right of the bar.”

Jeff turned to look where she indicated. “Let’s head that way then.”

Relieved that this part of the charade was over, she followed him in a meandering path toward the door. Not that she disliked the idea of being with him again. On the contrary, she liked it a bit too much. Best not to head down _that_ path again, though.

When they reached the doorman he wordlessly handed them an access chip and admitted them into a short hallway with rooms on either side, dimly lit like the other room had been. Each of the doors were numbered with Farian characters. They passed the door with the character that matched their access chip and continued to one at the very end that wasn’t numbered.

Kee pulled the copied chip out of her purse and glanced at Jeff. If it was the wrong chip or if the lock detected the copying process, it could trip an alarm. With his confirmation, she passed it over the sensor pad and held her breath. The lock blinked from yellow to blue and for an instant, Kee wondered if they’d find guards on the other side, but then the door opened to an empty hallway. Finally, she let out the breath.

They stepped through the door and she recalled the layout she’d memorized. Just as she was turning to the right, Jeff said, “To the right.”

They silently retraced the rout they’d planned out earlier, zigzagging through the massive home to find Kodun’s Klingon collection. The walls were covered with weapons and paintings depicting Klingon mythology and history. Throughout the room, on individual stands sat sculptures ranging from pre-space-flight to modern. 

Jeff paced through the room, looking at each one. Finally, he walked over to a painting of Captain Koloth at a battle on Galdonterre. He reached behind the painting and smiled, pulling out a tiny data crystal. But his smile disappeared when an alarm began to blare. “We’ve been exposed.” He said, handing her the data crystal. “Take it, I’ll hold them off.”

Kee enclosed it in her fist and rushed away. She had no intent of leaving him behind, but she had to stash the data crystal somewhere where they could retrieve it later. She thought through the layout in her mind. There was a holosuite up ahead, she ran to it and quickly pulled the cover off of the control panel and reached inside. As she felt around she found a small ledge just above the opening and slid the data crystal onto it. Once she’d replaced the panel, she turned back the way she came.

She hurried back to where she’d left him and rounded the corner to find two armed guards instead. She scrambled to reverse and find cover only to run into two more guards coming up behind her with their weapons raised. She could _maybe_ take on the four of them if they hadn’t been armed, but with their weapons already trained on her, her only option was to surrender.

During the Occupation, she’d become accustomed to mistreatment when in the enemy’s custody. The Farian guards were rough, but nothing compared to the Cardassians. At gunpoint, she was harshly guided through hallways and up to the top floor. Keeping track of her location from memory, she knew they were heading toward Kodun’s main office. They came to the top of a grandiose flight of stairs into an ostentatious entryway. Large wooden double doors with ornate inlays in old Farian style, bordered with gold embellishments that had the distinctive sheen of latinum. She rolled her eyes at the indulgence of it.

Inside, Kee spotted Jeff immediately. He was held in place by a pair of guards and Kodun’s female bodyguard. Two of the guards escorting her remained at the door and the other two moved her to a space opposite Jeff.

Kodun himself stood at the window, looking out at the purple sky with his hands clenched tightly behind him. He spoke in an even, controlled voice at first. “I invite you into my home. Give you all of the hospitality I can offer. And yet you _lie to me?!_ ” His voice rose sharply, dangerously at the end. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill both of you right now.”

“You have every reason to kill us.” Jeff said steadily.

Finally, Kodun turned to face them. “It’s interesting. I find a Federation spy, a Human, infiltrating my organization. Then only a month later another Human shows up, poking around where he doesn’t belong.” He took Jeff’s silence as confirmation. “It was really too bad, I was quite fond of Kaylynn.” He leered at Kee, “She had _unique skills_ too.”

No matter how Jeff tried to hide it, she could see he was getting under his skin.

Kodun turned back to him. “There was nothing she wouldn’t do. It was a shame to sell her off to the Orions.”

With that, Jeff lost control. He lunged at Kodun but the guards held on to him. One of them slammed his knee into Jeff’s stomach and forced him to his knees. Kee pulled but the guards holding her kept her in place. The female bodyguard grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head and raised a knife to his neck. When he stopped struggling she leaned down to forcefully kiss him until he turned his face away.

Kodun chuckled. “Nialle likes you.” He told him. “Too bad I can’t let her have you.” He gave her a look that made her back down, but only slightly. “Now that we’re finally being honest, let’s see… you’re not here for Kaylynn, are you? You’d already have found out about her fate by now. So why would you go to the trouble of deceiving me and getting into my home? Hm? My guess is that she left something behind that you want. Information, maybe? A data crystal?” He turned away from Jeff and looked Kee up and down. “Search her.”

Nialle lifted the knife away from Jeff’s throat and it came away with some of his blood on it. She walked slowly over to her with a sneer and wiped the blood off on Kee’s lip before beginning to pat her down, checking every part for the tiny crystal. She even felt around the hem of her dress, but came up empty.

“So either you haven’t found it yet, or you found it and hid it away somewhere.” Kodun surmised and pondered his options. “Tell me where you hid the data crystal,” He said to her then pointed at Jeff, “Or he dies. Right here, right now.”

Nialle returned to Jeff and touched the point of her knife to his neck again.

“Don’t tell them.” Jeff said.

Kodun stepped closer to her, “Where is it?”

“Don’t tell them! That’s an order!”

“Tell me or he dies _now!_ ” Kodun was only a centimeter away from her face.

“No!” Jeff called.

“Now!” He roared, then pointed to his bodyguard, “Do it!”

“No!” Kee cried out. “I’ll show you where it is.”

“No, don’t!” Jeff insisted, but it was too late.

A smug expression formed on Kodun’s face and he hooked a finger under her chin to tip her face toward his. “I’m listening.”

“I’ll show you.” She promised.

He turned to his associates and gestured for them to allow her to lead them to the hiding place, then to the ones holding Jeff, “Take him, too. If she tries anything, kill him immediately.”

Kee led the group back the way they’d come. The odds were slightly better now, at least. Two guards on each of them, plus Kodun’s personal bodyguard. She was the question mark, though, Kee wasn’t sure what her skill level would be. Jeff seethed as they moved through the mansion, she couldn’t blame him. She didn’t dare give him any indication of her plan. It was a huge gamble. She only hoped it worked.

When they arrived at the holosuite she pointed to the panel and said, “It’s in there.”

Nialle waved her knife at it, “You open it.” Smart, incase she’d boobytrapped it.

Kee only wished she’d had the time to do that. She hooked her fingertips around the edge of the panel and pulled until it disengaged. She set down the loose panel and began to reach inside the opening.

“Wait.” She stopped her with a suspicious glare. “I’ll get it.” Smart again, she could have hidden some kind of weapon inside.

Again, Kee wished she’d been able to do it. She stepped back between the two guards while the other woman reached inside, felt around and finally brought out the tiny data crystal.

Smiling, she tossed the data crystal to one of the men guarding Kee who had a dataport at the base of his skull. He reached up and slid the data crystal inside and began accessing it with a distant look in his eyes. Kee tensed. A few second ticked by and suddenly electricity surged from the dataport up toward his head and down to his shoulders. His body seized and he dropped to the floor.

“It’s spiked!” Nialle shouted.

Kee swung her elbow up to smash into the nose of the guard on her right and with the same movement, she grabbed his arm that was holding a phaser and slammed it down against her knee, bending the elbow backwards.

Nialle’s knife slashed toward Kee’s face and she bent back to avoid it. Kee drove her knee into her stomach while grabbing her wrist and twisted hard to force her to drop the knife.

Nialle swung a punch that connected with Kee’s jaw, then punched again but Kee blocked and grabbed the other woman’s arm, pulling her close and slammed her elbow into her face at the same time.

Staggering back a couple of steps, Nialle spun and kicked Kee in the sternum, sending her stumbling backward and gasping for breath. The other woman was on Kee immediately and hammered her elbow into the crook of her neck.

Kee reached down and snatched up the panel and smashed it across Nialle’s face. She saw the guard beginning to push himself off of the floor with his dislocated elbow cradled close to his chest. Before he could straighten up, she slammed it edgewise across the back of his neck, shattering it.

Kee saw that Jeff had taken care of his two and dropped the remains of the panel onto the floor then reached down to pick up one of the phasers.

“That was a gamble.” He said disapprovingly as he bent down to retrieve the data crystal out of the guard’s dataport.

“Yep.” She said simply.

He stood up, pocketing the data crystal, “How’d you know she would have spiked it?”

She shrugged, “You’ve said how much she and I have in common. It’s what I would have done.” She headed away from the scene and he joined her.

“What if you were wrong?”

“I would have gone to plan B.”

“What was plan B?”

“‘Come up with plan B.’”

He ran his hand through his hair, “So, what’s the rest of your plan?”

“Actually, we’re already farther than I’d planned for.”

“How did the Resistance ever survive?”

Kee chuckled, “It’s precisely _because_ we didn’t plan too far ahead.”

* * *

Hurrying down the hallway toward the kitchen, Kee began to formulate a partial plan. Jeff hadn’t asked where they were going and she assumed he’d had the same thought. At the back of the kitchen there was a garbage chute that ran down to a basement level, from there they might be able to make it to the utility vehicle port.

They burst through the doors into the kitchen and Jeff immediately pointed his phaser at the workers there. “Down! On the floor! Now!”

While they complied, Kee checked around the food preparation equipment for others. Keeping their phasers trained on the prostrate workers, they looked around for their escape route. After a few minutes he called to her. “Over here.” But before she got to him, Kodun’s guards broke through the doors, firing phaser blasts almost before they were all the way into the room. The workers on the floor covered their heads fearfully as the shots flew over them.

Kee ducked behind a food stasis unit until the attack diminished, then leaned out to shoot back. Weapons fire pounded the side of the stasis unit, sending sparks everywhere. Jeff motioned from his cover for her to stay in place, then he disappeared in the opposite direction. As soon as she had a chance, she leaned out to return fire, answered again by a barrage of weapons fire.

Just as she began to wonder where Jeff had gone, she heard a couple of guttural croaks followed by bodies dropping to the floor. She carefully peered around the corner to see the two guards laying on the floor with kitchen knives buried in their chests, but Jeff was nowhere to be seen.

She rushed to where the garbage chute opening would be and arrived just as Jeff arrived. When the aperture opened for them she glanced inside. It was just large enough for them to fit, but the sides were completely smooth. Her shoes would have no traction in there, so she kicked them off and climbed inside.

She braced her back against the side with one foot under her and one foot opposite and lowered herself down. When she was far enough, Jeff followed. They eased downward with the smell of rotting food wafting up to them.

Sounds from above told them that more guards had entered the kitchen. She glanced down, trying to decide whether they were close enough to drop, but the decision was made for them. A thug’s head appeared at the top of the chute, then his phaser. Kee released the pressure on the walls of the chute and dropped. Sliding and finally tumbling into a bin used to collect the refuse to be vaporized later. She rolled to the side and Jeff dropped in right after her, firing back up into the shaft.

She looked around to get her bearings while they climbed out of the receptacle. “That way.” She pointed toward where the port would be and they dashed off in that direction together. They accelerated to a full sprint in the dark, utilitarian chamber. His shoes made loud footsteps that echoed around them, but her bare feet padded in complete silence. Her toes gripped the rough surface and she urged herself faster. With his longer legs, she had to take more steps than he did, but she still nudged just ahead of him.

They rounded a corner into a space filled with vehicles of all sizes. Atmospheric shuttles, sub-impulse ships and sub-light transports. All of different designs and origins, but all utilitarian without a hint of the luxury Kodun would demand for himself.

Kee and Jeff moved through the rows of ships, searching for one that would be warp capable. Just as they spotted a Tellarite raider with a pair of nacelles, phaser blasts pounded the ship near them. They ducked low and made their way to the raider. Kee stood guard over Jeff while he worked to override the door lock. She could hear Kodun’s guards moving in all around them, but she couldn’t get a clean shot at any of them.

She saw someone pass by down the row and she opened fire, then turned to fire on another figure on the other side. Jeff handed her his phaser and she fired desperately in every direction to hold them back. When she stopped the sound of her last phaser blast echoed through the chamber for a second, then silence. The only sound was the sound of her heart in her ears. When the raider’s hatch lock beeped she nearly jumped.

She fired her phaser to each side one more time then ducked inside with Jeff and sealed the door behind her. The cockpit was cramped, but big enough for three people.

“Take weapons.” He told her as he dropped into the pilot seat.

She sat at the weapons console and tapped it to life then began the sequence to bring the phasers online. While the computer worked, she familiarized herself with the console. She’d been trained on various non-Starfleet interfaces, including Tellarite. Most tactical consoles had certain things in common, at least.

A whine from behind told them that the guards outside were trying to cut into the hull with their phasers. Jeff looked back, “We’d better get moving.” He turned back to his console and the raider lifted off.

“Phasers aren’t online yet.” She informed him, but he didn’t acknowledge, only maneuvered the craft through the chamber and out the portal into the interior of the domed city. Moments later two more sub-impulse raiders appeared behind them in hot pursuit. He flew evasively, but they stayed with him high above the city.

“We’ve got to get out into space. Those phasers ready yet?” He asked.

She checked, their progress was achingly slow. “No.”

“Too bad.” He said and flew the ship straight up toward the dome.

She willed the weapons to come online faster. If they ran into that transparent aluminum boundary without blowing a hole in it first, it could shred their hull. The other ships broke off their pursuit. She watched the telemetry counting down the distance, they weren’t going to make it. It was coming up too fast!

Finally, the phaser controls blinked on and she hit the firing key without targeting anything, just blasted straight ahead. They blew through the hole they’d made before the structural integrity field sealed the breach in the dome.

Three more warp capable raiders came toward them in a sweeping arc from behind the planet. Jeff flew the ship straight up in relation to the compass of the star system while Kee fired at the closing ships. Return fire pounded the hull as the three raiders surrounded them. Her targeting scanners struggled to keep up with his evasive maneuvers.

Two of them kept on their tail while the third tried to cut off their rout back to Federation space, but Jeff flew straight at him. Ignoring the two behind them, she targeted the one ahead and unleashed everything this little ship had on it. Jeff veered off to the side at the last moment as the other ship’s engine core began to overload.

As soon as they were far enough away from the star’s gravity well, he punched it up to maximum warp. “Laying in a course to Starbase 375.” He said as stars began to elongate into streaks on the viewscreen. “I doubt they’ll follow us for long.” He added.

Kee only rested her head back on her chair and breathed out.

* * *

They’d arrived at the starbase to be greeted with suspicion, at least until Jeff had given Admiral Ross the proper identification credentials. While waiting for the Cochrane to return her to Earth, he had the distinct impression that Kee had been avoiding him. He considered just leaving it as is. Letting the matter drop. But he felt like there were things that needed to be said. Despite what had happened, he liked working with her.

He finally forced himself to go to Kee’s guest quarters. It would likely be a long time until they saw each other again, if ever, and he didn’t want to leave things hanging like this. He pressed the chime and she called for him to come in.

Kee was sitting on a couch with a mug in her hands and smiled an almost-genuine smile at him. “Can I get you something?” She raised her cup, “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” He awkwardly sat on the couch perpendicular to the one she was on. She was back to her normal in-uniform look. Little to no makeup, hair pulled back neatly, a security-gold panel across her shoulders. He decided she looked better this way.

She rested her elbows on her knees and looked up at him. “I’m sorry about Mal. She seemed like a good person.”

He sighed, it never got easier to lose someone. He knew very well that she understood that, but he wasn’t sure what else could have been said. He’d grieve for her in his own way.

Finally, she broke the silence. “Look. The other night…”

“It didn’t mean anything.” He interrupted.

“It didn’t mean anything.” She agreed and seemed as relieved as he felt. “We were caught up in the roles we were playing…”

“It’s easy to do things when you’re pretending to be someone else.”

“That’s exactly it. It’s not like me. I don’t do things like that.” Her eyes dropped down to stare at the cup in her hands. “I’ve only been with one other person before.”

The boy back on that moon. Her pain had been so vivid. “You loved him deeply.”

“I still do.” She said softly then shook herself from the memory. She leaned back and tucked her legs under her. He recognized that same emotional control he’d seen when it had first happened. For a moment, he envied it. “The thing is that you witnessed a part of my past that I’ve never shared with anyone. I never talked to the others about what happened. And, frankly, I’ve buried it so deep and so often that it’s almost not even real to me anymore.” She took one last drink of her coffee, but continued to stare down into the empty cup. “And maybe that created some kind of intimacy that helped prompt what happened.”

That excused her, at least. As for him, could Mal’s death have affected him so deeply? Was he simply so desperate for comfort from a kindred soul? Did he have any excuse?

In the silence between them, she craned her neck to one side, wincing slightly.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I think that _sli'vak_ bodyguard hit me harder than I thought.” She said, rubbing her shoulder.

“You should go to sickbay and get it taken care of.” With the look she gave him, he retracted, “Oh, that’s right. Security officers don’t like to go to sickbay unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“We’re invincible, you know.” She said with mock arrogance.

“Let me take a look at it.” He stood up, moved around behind her and gently traced his fingers along the muscles than ran from the base of her neck along her shoulders, locating a hard knot. She breathed in sharply when he pressed on it. “I think I found it.” He said and began working it out. 

He had wondered many times if there was something he could have done to save that boy’s life, but he knew that if it had been possible, Kee would have done it. Had she really never let go of him? After all these years? Because of the control she maintained, it was easy to think that she didn’t feel it, but he was realizing that the inverse was true: she felt it so deeply that her only defense was to clamp it down tight. She often laughed and made jokes, but under all of that, her past still had a strong hold on her.

She was right, though, their history gave him a perspective on her that most people didn’t get, and it was her business if she wanted to lock out this one aspect of her life, he certainly had. SI agents didn’t have the luxury of falling in love, and perhaps ex-terrorists sometimes didn’t either.

With the worst of the knot worked out, he returned to his seat. “I guess people like us will always live for the job.”

She smiled at him without amusement. “That’s my working plan.”

He wanted to say something profound, but instead, “Well, if the celibacy thing doesn’t work out for you, just come and find me.” He smiled at her. “At least that way it’ll be perpetuating an old mistake and not a new one.”

She burst out laughing, this time smiling deeply enough that there was a hint of dimples on her cheeks that he’d never seen before. He joined her laughter and she finally managed to say, “I’ll keep that in mind.”


	8. STARFLEET: 2374, YEAR 3

Kee watched Loren’s gymnastics team practice. She’d come to watch a practice by way of apology for missing the competition a couple of days ago where they’d won the right to compete in the championship. She watched him twist and turn in midair and wondered at the strength it took to do that. Finally, he landed perfectly with no hop, which she’d learned was important.

She watched while he threw a jacket on over his uniform and walked towards her. She suppressed a smile as she appreciated his masculine form. “Looks good!” She called.

“Thanks, we’re looking forward to winning the championship in a few weeks.” He said as soon as he reached her.

“I’m sure you will.”

“Hey, do you want to go grab a rootbeer? You know, to celebrate.”

“Sure.”

They walked together toward the exit. “You know, you could tryout next season. From what I’ve heard, you’d make a great addition to the team.”

She laughed without looking at him, “What have you heard?”

“Oh, just a few stories from your ex-sparing partners.”

She laughed, she did have a certain coordination on the wrestling mat, but that was as far as it went. “Be that as it may, there’s no possible way you’d get me up on those things.” She said, gesturing to the horizontal bars just as they walked out the door and turned toward a nearby café.

“Why not? You’d be great.”

“Because I’m afraid of heights!”

He laughed, “You? Afraid of heights? I find that hard to believe.”

She simply shrugged as they walked into the café and sat down at the bar. Loren ordered two rootbeers and turned to face her. “I can’t believe _you_ are afraid of heights. I didn’t think you were afraid of _anything_.”

She smiled wide, “Terrified. Always have been. When I was a child we weren’t allowed to go into the forest, but the kids I grew up with would dare each other to climb just about any structure that was over two meters high.”

“And you stayed safely on the ground?” He asked as two bottles of rootbear were set in front of them.

“No.” She laughed self-consciously, “I climbed the highest! I was just completely terrified the entire time!”

He laughed too, “Now that, I believe.” They each took a drink. “So, now the ‘Fearless Kee’ persona is shattered.”

“Trust me, I’m afraid of plenty of things.” She said softly, then decided to change the subject, “So, where are you going to put the trophy when you win it?”

“ _If_ we win it,” he corrected her, “The main trophy will go in the display case in the main hall. They’ll give us each individual awards and I’ll probably send it to my parents. They’re the ones that encouraged me to get started in the first place.” He annoyingly turned the conversation back to her. “So, come on, where were you for a week?”

“It was a special mission. I can’t really talk about it.” She was grateful for the excuse. Lweha, Maggie and a couple of the female security cadets had coerced her into telling them too much already about her little side adventure while still maintaining silence about the actual mission.

“Is everything ok?” He asked, concerned.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” It wasn’t quite a lie. She still regretted what happened, but she and Jeff had worked it out in the end, so it was mostly ‘fine.’ So why did she still feel guilty keeping it from him?

He let the matter drop and they sat in silence for a few minutes. “Hey, do you want to come to another one of Moritsson’s movie nights?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” She said hesitantly.

“You didn’t like the last one?”

“It was interesting… It’s just… _why_ would someone demand that they bring them a ‘shrubbery’?” She asked, holding up her hands.

Loren laughed at the mention of what seemed to have been one of his favorite parts of the movie, “That entire movie, and that’s what you get hung up on?”

“It just makes no sense. How does someone even think to write something like that?”

“That’s the point! It’s completely nonsensical.”

Kee waved off the explanation, still laughing. She fully expected him to insist that she watch it again with him until she found it as amusing as he evidently did. She didn’t mind.

After a moment, he spoke up again. “Ok, no movie, so how about another flight lesson.” He’d been coaching her on tight proximity flight techniques.

“ _That_ sounds like a good idea.” The two of them in a small shuttle cockpit did sound appealing. She tried to convince herself that it was only to help develop her piloting skills so she could be a more effective officer. That it had nothing to do with bumping shoulders or the smell of his cologne. She watched the bubbles in the characteristically cheerful Starfleet drink. Jeff had read her so thoroughly. She intended to include no romance in her life, nothing for her future but her job. But still.

She watched him sip his drink, thinking about how his lips would feel on hers. Her heart began to quicken as she studied his hands and thought about them wrapped around her waist and touching her breasts. Suddenly Traie’s face appeared in her mind as he said a silent ‘I love you’ to her. Her heart felt like it caved in and she felt heat on the back of her neck. She quickly turned away from Loren. “I… I need to go.” She said. All she could think about was leaving. Going somewhere away from him. Somewhere alone. She slid off of the stool and hurried toward the door. Loren called after her, but she just called to him from the doorway without turning around, “I have some work to catch up on. I’ll see you later.”

She walked quickly to the dormitory, fighting tears, trying desperately to push the feelings back down where they belonged, but it was impossible this time. She managed to avoid interacting with anybody while she made her way back to her room. As soon as the door shut behind her, she leaned her back against it and allowed the tears to finally flow. After all the years she’d pushed this away, it came rushing back up so forcefully that she was powerless to stop the pain.

Traie’s face came to her mind again, mouthing that silent and final ‘I love you’ to her. She slid down to sit on the floor and laid her head down on her knees. Rough sobs shook her body as the images continued. Traie on his knees, the flash of the phaser, his body falling limp to the ground. And the sound, that horrible sound of them dragging him away. His body to be vaporized in a disposal unit on that moon. She felt like she might get sick.

Her heart ached for him. His smile, his laugh, his touch. The comforting warmth of his body against hers on a cold night. When she’d returned to Bajor without him, nobody in either cell had said anything to her. They knew. For either of them to return without the other, it was clear what had happened. She’d been thankful for that silence at the time, it made it easier to continue burying her feelings. It was the only way she could go on and keep fighting. And now, sitting with Loren, the feelings she’d been denying she had for him, had brought all of pain and loss up to the surface.

Why hadn’t this happened before with Jeff? Why had she panicked like this now and not then? She knew why. She didn’t have real feelings for Jeff, it was purely physical. But Loren… She rested her head on her knees. All she could do was sit on the floor and weep. For the man she’d lost and for the man she couldn’t allow herself to love.

* * *

Maggie approached Kee’s door with a mixture of concern and apprehension. Loren told her that Kee seemed upset when she had suddenly left him half an hour ago. Kee seemed like a generally happy person, laughing and talking with her friends, but Maggie knew her friend carried a lot of things inside that she couldn’t or wouldn’t share with the rest of them. Even when she did share, it was usually vague and ambiguous. Maggie couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d been through, but she hoped she could at least provide some kind of comfort for whatever Kee was going through.

Maggie pressed the chime next to the door, but was met with only silence. “Computer, confirm that Cadet Norvish is in her room.”

“Cadet Norvish is in her dormitory room.” The computer responded.

She pressed the chime again, still nothing. “Kee,” She called through the door, “I know you’re there. Please let me in.” She waited a few moments, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I want you to know I’m here for you. No matter what it is. And I’m not leaving.”

“Come in.” Kee’s voice was uncharacteristically tentative.

When she opened the door she found Kee sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite the door. She looked like she’d been crying, hard. She seemed so fragile at that moment. Maggie wanted to rush to her side, but held back for a moment, unsure what to say.

“Did Loren send you?” She asked with a hint of hostility.

“No, but he’s worried about you.” She sat down on the floor next to her. “He said you were having a good time, but you left suddenly.”

“It’s not his fault. He didn’t do anything.” She assured her. “It’s just that…” She stopped as her voice tightened and she buried her face in her hands.

Maggie new better than to tell her it would be alright, so she draped her arm around Kee’s shoulders in silence.

After long moments she was able to speak again. “His name was Traie and I loved him.” She seemed to be willfully controlling her emotions now. “He was everything to me, like a piece of myself.”

“Something terrible happened.” She was beginning to understand now. Having grown up the daughter of a ships’ counselor, she’d seen many people grieve for lost loved ones and recognized the intensity of the pain Kee was holding back. More than Maggie could even imagine.

Kee only nodded. “We were on a mission together. Things went wrong and they executed him.” Her voice choked on the last part of the sentence and she pressed her hand over her eyes. After a moment she put her hand down and continued, “I had to complete the mission, so I buried the pain. Packed it down as hard as I could. And when it was all over it was just easier to leave it there. I could never bring myself to face it.”

Now Maggie felt tears coming to her own eyes.

“I see it, when I close my eyes at night. I hear it…” She closed her eyes and rubbed the sides of her forehead as though that would take it away. “I never really grieved for him. I just miss him so much.” With that Kee fell into open sobs. Maggie pulled her close and just let her cry without a word.

* * *

Maggie had been evasive when Loren asked about whatever was bothering Kee. Assuming it was something private, he’d given her space for a few days, but still felt like he needed to make things right with her.

Whenever Kee wasn’t studying or in classes she was usually in the security side of the gym where she’d worked for Commander Baker since their Freshman year. Sure enough, that’s where he found her. The place was otherwise empty as she moved through the room resetting and organizing various exercise and training equipment. He was sure she’d heard him enter, but didn’t respond until he was closer.

Kee reluctantly turned to face him. “Look. I’m sorry I took off like that the other day.”

“Hey, I was going to say sorry. If I said something…”

“Oh, no, no, no. It’s not your fault. I just,” she shook her head, searching for words, “I have issues.” She laughed self-consciously, “Obviously.” 

“Understandable. It’s actually amazing that you’re as sane as you are.”

Her jaw dropped at his statement.

“I mean… that’s… that didn’t come out the way it was supposed to.”

She only shrugged. “You’re right, though.” When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “When I first came here, it was _strongly suggested_ that I see a counselor on a regular basis.” She shrugged. “I guess they want to make sure their security officers are mentally stable or something like that.” She said with another self-conscious laugh, then looked down at what she was doing. “And I did. For a while. But…”

Finally, she put down the equipment and sat down on a bench. “It’s just that I’ve dealt with hardship and loss and pain all my life. I learned to put it away and move on, keep going. Because that was the only way to survive. There was no time to grieve.” She finally looked up at him, “Obviously that’s not going to work as a long-term solution. But then to go back and dig it all up in a counselling session… I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I stopped going.”

He sat on the bench next to her without interrupting.

“I guess I should start going again. It’s not like it’s just going to go away.” She sighed, “It’s like there’s this disconnect between my life then and my life now. As though I could just break it off and leave it all behind, pretend it was somebody else. But it doesn’t work like that. And even if it did, I couldn’t bring myself to forget the people we lost. To act like they never existed.”

He’d never seen her quite like this and hated to see her hurting so badly. Had he somehow triggered this the other day? Had he come on too strong? It seemed as though it would be best for him to pull back and just be her friend. He wanted to somehow communicate that to her. That he would be there for her in any role that she needed him while she worked through whatever this was about, but wasn’t sure how to say it. “You know I’m always here for you, no matter what.” He said softly.

She turned to him without meeting his eyes and just when it seemed like she would, two male cadets noisily entered the room. Kee quickly squeezed his hand, “Thanks.” She said quietly then stood up to greet them, already back to her normal persona as though a switch had been flipped. “Hey, you girls back for more already?” She called to them with all the bluster of security personnel.

Loren stood to leave as the three bantered between them and he left Kee to her work.


	9. STARFLEET: 2375, YEAR 3

Kee beamed down to the fifth planet in the Magrez system with her team: Maggie, Loren, Jack and Lweha. There had been very few projects of this type. Anticipating the necessity of pulling cadets out early to join the war, many of the non-essential courses had been delayed, the requirements to be fulfilled in absentia after the war.

The Antares, had brought them from Earth along with two other teams. Each team was beamed down to a different m-class planet in the system to study a five-kilometer area for two days. After that, Antares would pick them up and take them back to Earth. Very clean, very simple project.

In order to save time, the team had split up. Jack and Lweha went off to the east to study a water supply and the other three went in the direction of a large rock formation to the south-east of their beam-in site. Keeping an open comm signal, the five chatted as they worked. The others seemed to be enjoying their assignment, but Kee had felt like something was off since they beamed down. This deep in Federation territory, they expected to be perfectly safe, but she felt on edge anyway.

“Guys!” Maggie called, “Come look at this really great fungus!”

Loren walked over to where she was and Kee followed to find a grouping of cup-shaped, blue fungus with a bright orange edge all the way around. She’d seen plenty of fungus back when she lived in the forest, but this really was beautiful.

Maggie busied herself taking scans, holos and samples of the ‘really great fungus’ while Kee and Loren went back to their work. 

“She’s really enjoying this.” Kee said to him while scanning the rockface for microorganisms.

“Aren’t you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right here.”

“You’re just feeling vulnerable because we’re the only vertebrates on the entire planet.”

“Oh, well, that makes me feel better.” She said with sarcasm.

“Glad to help.” He flashed her a smile as he followed his tricorder off in another direction.

She continued scanning and logging, scanning and logging. Her mind wondered back to Ilwea. Today was the anniversary of what had happened to him. She didn’t normally pay attention to such things, but that was something that was marked permanently into her memory. Maybe that’s why she was feeling so uneasy today.

The two of them had been captured when they went for medical supplies after shutting down that mining operation. They’d tortured him for days right in front of her. She remembered the smell of burning flesh. Her stomach twisted at the thought of it. She’d have given anything to take his place. He’d died and been revived over and over, eventually he’d lost both of his legs. The nerve damage was so bad that even now he difficulty with the prosthetics Starfleet had provided. 

Kee shook herself from the memory and refocused on her task before becoming aware that the comm chatter from her team had gone silent. Maggie was still within her line of sight and she looked over, she’d noticed it too. Kee tapped her commbadge but only received the tone that indicated it was inoperative. Maggie tried hers too with the same result.

Without a word Kee pulled out her phaser and charged off in the direction Loren had gone. She sprinted up and over a hill but skidded to a halt at the site of five Cardassians surrounding Loren. Two of them had their weapons trained on him. He gave her a resigned look.

“Drop your weapon.” One of them said.

Her mind raced to assess the situation. They were ununiformed but carrying military weaponry and insignia. One pointed his weapon at her, she might be able to take him, but it was the two holding Loren that made her comply. She dropped her phaser. Maggie came up behind her just then and silently did the same.

The one with the phaser aimed at her stayed a safe distance away while another pressed a scanner to Kee’s thumb, allowing it to read her DNA, then brought the results to his superior.

“It’s her.” He said, satisfied, walked over to her. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time.” The insignia attached to his civilian clothes identified him as a gul. A _former_ gul?

“What do you want with me?” She demanded.

Instead of answering her, he turned to one of his men, “Find the other two.” Then he turned back to Kee, “To answer your question, I want you to pay for your crimes.” He let the thought hang in the air for a moment, “But not just yet.” He tapped the comm unit on his wrist. “Decloak and beam us aboard.”

The rocks and trees of the planet disappeared in a whirl of light to be replaced with the holding area of a Cardassian ship. A Cardassian ship with a cloaking device? Taking a moment to feel the gravity beneath her feet told her that this ship was not in space. They must have landed somewhere on the planet and laid in wait cloaked. The layout of the holding area, only three two-person-sized cells, suggested that it was a small ship.

A row of ID photos caught her eye. Her current Starfleet headshot was among them along with those of most of the rest of her former colleagues. Others of people she didn’t recognize were labeled with Cardassian characters that said ‘deceased’ or ‘cold.’

The Cardassians shoved the three of them into the cells. Forcefields confining Maggie and Loren were activated, but the gul stood in front of her cell, flanked by two guards with their phaser rifles trained on her. “I spent the last three years of the Occupation trying to track down a man codenamed The Cipher.”

Recognition must have passed across her face because he continued, “I see you’re familiar with his work. When our government decided for political reasons to withdraw from Bajor, my superiors were unhappy with my inability to identify this informant and I was disciplined accordingly. I’ve spent the last six years continuing to pursue him. And now you’re going to help me.”

She could only laugh in his face, “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Not at all.” He said, taking an ominous look at her two friends. “Trust me, you _will_ be helping us.” With that he activated the forcefield and left, taking his men with him.

Kee swallowed hard and paced a few times. She couldn’t do this again.

“Who’s The Cipher?” Maggie finally asked.

“He was an off-world informant, _very_ accurate and completely anonymous. Nobody knew who he actually was. We don’t even know for sure if he’s a ‘he’, it could have been ‘she’ or ‘they’ for all we knew. We couldn’t contact him, he always initiated contact. Never spoke directly, only coded messages. He’d send us intel on highly classified Cardassian projects, warn us of impending actions against us, that sort of thing. He’d been working with the Resistance for years by the time I’d joined. Anyone with direct information on who he was was long dead. After the Withdrawl, he just vanished.”

“Then how do these Cardassians expect to be able to find him?” Loren asked.

“I don’t know.” She looked back and forth between the two. The truth was that she did have _some_ information on The Cipher. Not enough to track him down, but information that could be valuable if they did manage to. “And we need to get out of here before we find out.”

* * *

Loren watched Kee slowly pace her cell. Not with anxiety, more like she was studying it. He wanted to ask her if she had a plan, or more about this mysterious contact the Cardassians were looking for, but it was likely they were being monitored, so he kept silent.

Jack and Lweha were out there somewhere. Hopefully between the comms going down and her telepathy, they’d know to protect themselves.

He was frightened by what the Cardassians might do to them. Who wouldn’t be? But he wasn’t sure which of them was in the worse position, Kee or Maggie and himself. There was something she was holding back about The Cipher and she’d have to make a decision between loyalty to this informant and the safety of her friends. It seemed like no matter what she did, where she went, painful decisions followed her.

The doors opened and two of the Cardassians that had captured them entered. They stalked over to stand in front of his cell. One of them raised a phaser rifle at him while the other one lowered the force field. “State your name and rank for the record.” He said to him.

He glanced over at Kee, unsure whether he should comply, but she gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “Cadet Loren Dales.”

The Cardassian tapped something into his padd then grabbed Loren’s wrist to press his thumb to the scanner. With the phaser aimed at his chest, he didn’t resist. After that he reactivated the forcefield and moved to Maggie.

Again, the one with the phaser rifle aimed it at her while the other lowered the force field, looking her up and down with a disturbing expression. “State your name and rank for the record.”

“Cadet Margret Capshaw.” She mumbled without making eye contact.

He took hold of her hand and pressed her thumb to the scanner, but didn’t get go when it was finished. “It’s unfortunate that the two of you will die because of your association with this terrorist.” He said to them both. Maggie tried to pull her hand away, but he held on. “Although, I may have to make an exception for you.” He stepped into the cell and backed Maggie against the wall. “The gul owes me a favor,” he told the guard, “I think I’ll keep this one.” He turned back to Maggie, who had turned her face away from his, and ran the back of his finder along her jaw, down her neck and tugged at her uniform collar.

Loren wasn’t sure what to do. They couldn’t stand by and let this happen, but neither of them could do anything about it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Kee was tense, her hands balled into fists, he knew she couldn’t bear to allow it to happen either but she was just as helpless to do anything. The Cardassian had opened Maggie’s uniform down to her cleavage and she was nearing panic as he drew his finger along the opening.

Kee suddenly started speaking urgently in a language Loren didn’t understand. It was too harsh to be her native language, it must have been Cardassian. She continued shouting at them, he couldn’t even guess at what she was saying. Eventually he stopped and turned toward her. She’d hit a nerve somehow.

He stepped out of the cell and reactivated the force field. He walked over to Kee’s cell. She didn’t back down, looking directly into his eyes. Fearless.

Without being able to stare her down, he spoke, “What did you say to me?”

She narrowed her eyes and the edges of her lips curled slightly. “I’m sorry,” She said, switching back to Standard, “What I meant to say was that your children are illegitimate.” Apparently, a considerable insult.

The Cardassian turned to his guard with a look Loren couldn’t read, then calmly lowered the force field. Without warning he struck Kee across the face with the heal of his hand. She staggered back against the wall. The Cardassian followed her. Loren couldn’t see what was happening, but heard several more blows. Then the two moved back into view. The Cardassian lifted Kee by the front of her uniform and slammed her against the wall. Her head hit the wall with a sickening thud. Her eyes glazed over for a moment but she stayed conscious. There was a bruise already forming below one eye and blood trickled out of her nose. The Cardassian held her there against the wall and leaned close to her face. “Would you care to repeat that?”

Kee looked like she was fighting to stay conscious, _“Motiik kahra.”_ He’d heard her curse using that word before. He had a pretty good idea what it meant.

The Cardassian only laughed, “No,” he turned to look back at Maggie, “I think I’ll save that for Maggie.” With that he let go of Kee and she slid down the wall to the floor. “The gul will be ready for you soon.” Loren was worried he’d go after Maggie again, but instead just reactivated the force field and marched out of the room leaving his guard standing at the door.

* * *

Kee’s head pounded so hard it was difficult to concentrate. Soliciting a beating was a risky way to get a chance to pickpocket a Cardassian, but it had been the only thing she could come up with at the time. She did her best to ignore her friends’ concerned looks, she needed to focus on several tasks. She carefully slipped the power cell that she’d taken off of the glinn into her uniform sleeve.

Next, she needed to know how much the guard by the door could see what she was doing. She pulled her knees up and put her hands in her lap as though she was holding something. “Hey, Loren. What’s the resonance frequency for a 3.4 gigajoule force field?” She asked, using the most suspicious voice she could manage.

“Um… 8×1014 Hz” He answered.

The Cardassian walked around to where he would have a better view. _Gotcha_. Kee thought and held up her empty hands innocently.

“Don’t _test_ me, _Bajoran_.” He said, glowering down at her.

She allowed a smirk to creep onto her lips. When he had returned to his place, she carefully pulled the power cell out of her sleeve, keeping her hands in the same location as before. Based on the layout and design of the holding area, she’d determined it was an older design that had been taken out of service over a decade earlier because of a design flaw. In order to exploit that design flaw, she needed to chip the casing off of one end of the power cell. After that she would place it near the part of the wall where she knew the shield generator was located. The proximity of an uninsulated power source would knock out the force field… if it didn’t blow up or electrocute her first, that is.

* * *

Loren had thought Kee’s question was strange at first. At least, he did until he saw her working on something concealed in her lap. He sat on the bench in his cell and kept one eye on the guard and one on Kee. It _seemed_ like she’d recovered from that blow to the head, but he knew better than that. She was tough and could hide pain well. He remembered a training exercise back on Earth where she’d ended up with a deep gash on the palm of her hand. She’d barely winced when the medic tended to it.

Maggie had fallen silent, sitting on her bench with her knees to her chest, clearly agitated, but as composed as any Starfleet officer would be in her position. She trusted Kee to protect her. They both did. And he was certain that wherever the other two members of their team were, they were working on a plan to help them in whatever way they could. He just hoped help would come soon enough for all of them.

For lack of anything better to do, Loren studied the wall of photos across from his cell. Kee’s current Starfleet photo was there with smaller photos below it depicting a chronological series of her likeness. She looked very young in the first one with the soft features of a child. Her forehead wrinkled against the top of her ridges. She must have been terrified.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed from that first picture to the next, but there was already a hardness to her features and her face had thinned considerably by that point. She already looked much more like the person he knew than the first picture.

The next picture made him smile inwardly. She had to be sixteen or seventeen by then. Her lips were pursed defiantly and her eyes were not oriented toward the camera as though they’d caught her in the middle of an eye-roll.

“Is something funny?” Kee suddenly asked him and he realized that the smile must have crept onto his lips.

“I was just admiring your photos.” He said honestly.

Her face twisted into an exact reproduction of the photo he’d just been looking at and he burst into laughter.

Kee only sighed and rested her head back against the wall. She reached up to her collar and removed her uniform jacket and the grey turtleneck next. Then she bunched them up and set them behind her. And continued working on whatever she had concealed.

After a long time, she shifted her position, placing the object she’d been working on on the floor under the pieces of her uniform. Her fingertips were bloodied from whatever she’d been doing to the object. She slid it slowly toward the edge of the force field. When it reached a certain point electricity arced from the object to the wall and sent a chain reaction through the force field emitters. Sparks exploded up from the floor and down from the ceiling.

Just as the Cardassian was rushing toward her, Kee launched herself out of the smoky cell at him. Her inertia carrying them both to the ground. He was able to stand up and back away, pulling out his phaser. She lunged for the phaser, grasping his arm with one hand and slamming her elbow into his face with the other. She kicked the side of his knee and he crumpled to the floor pulling her with him. As the two hit the ground, the phaser clattered away from them. With the Cardassian on top, pinning her down she stretched her arm toward the phaser but it was far out of reach. Then Loren saw something reflective in the Cardassian’s hand. “Knife!” He yelled to her.

She reached up and caught his wrist as it came down. He pressed down with the advantage of gravity but she held him firm. She intertwined her legs around his, twisted and flipped him over onto his back. With the same movement, she slammed his head into the floor to knock him out. Faster than Loren had expected, she was on her feet and ran to pick up the phaser, but it had already taken too long, there were footsteps of soldiers at the door.

She fired toward the door and retreated behind the charred lip of the holding cell she’d been in. He could see by the look on her face that she didn’t have a way out of this. Several Cardassians at the door fired continuously at the wall behind which she took cover, preventing her from shooting back, or seeing the glinn that had knocked her around earlier creep up to her.

Loren tried to call out to warn her, but the phaser fire was too loud. When it stopped, she leaned out to return fire, but the Cardassian grabbed her wrist and twisted hard. There was a loud snap and she cried out, losing her grip on the phaser. Then he pushed her farther into the cell. Again, Loren couldn’t see what was going on, only sounds of a struggle.

When the Cardassian pulled Kee back out, holding onto the back of her uniform another one of them held up a charred piece of a power cell to show his superior. The first one looked at his belt to see an empty spot from which Kee had taken it when he was in her cell earlier. He threw her up against a blank section of wall, her elbows and forehead pressed against it. “Search her!” He told the others.

One of the other Cardassians searched her thoroughly, _very_ thoroughly, leaving no part of her untouched. When they were finished searching, _groping_ was a more accurate word, they pulled out a pair of restraints and latched one side onto her left wrist. The other side was secured around a piece of the burned structure. Unable to stand on her own for a moment, she dropped to her knees, cradling her right arm while her left dangled above her from the restraint. All but one of the Cardassians left, taking their unconscious crewmate with them.

Kee eventually managed to twist herself into a sitting position, breathing hard and shallow. “I’m sorry, guys.” She finally said, “I’m out of options.”

* * *

Kee flexed her left hand to keep the blood flowing. It had almost gone numb already. The light above her flickered randomly, making it hard to focus on any thought for very long. She wondered how Jack and Lweha were managing. Out there where she couldn’t do anything to help them. She scoffed inwardly, as though she could do anything for anybody at this point. She was fairly certain her right arm was broken and her other was shackled to the remains of a holding cell she’d failed to escape from. As a Starfleet officer _and_ a former terrorist, she should have done better.

She’d like to claim that she’d been in worse situations, but could only think of one. And that one had cost Ilwea dearly. She could do nothing to save him. If the others hadn’t come for them when they did, he would have died because she wasn’t strong enough or cunning enough to save him. Now she was helpless to save Maggie and Loren and they were alone on this planet for another two days. A lot could happen in two days. She hated the fact that they’d been dragged into this mess. It was _her_ informant, _her_ past.

From her position, she could see into Loren’s cell. He was laying down on the bench, staring at the ceiling. Suddenly she felt like she’d wasted the last three years with him. All those times studying together, eating together, finding any excuse to be around each other. Had she really expected to continue denying her feelings for him? Did she really expect to live the rest of her life without falling in love again? And now she might never get the chance to tell him.

She closed her eyes and shook her head at herself. When she opened them she found herself staring at the wall of ID photos. Cadda’s was right next to hers. It was a recent photo that she recognized had been taken for the Federation News Source. Her hair was now pure white with pink and green tips. She looked beautiful and happy. The older photos were entirely different. Not only because her hair was its natural brown color, but because of what had happened to her. Each photo farther back in time depicted a darker and darker pain until she reached the earliest one where it wasn’t there at all. That first photo was the only affirmation that she’d once been unbroken. Before what _that bastard_ had done to her.

With that thought in her mind, she turned to Maggie, who had also laid down like Loren. Kee’s fingers twitched thinking of strangling the glinn for even touching her. She looked away from her before tears had a chance to form.

That’s when she noticed that the lights weren’t blinking randomly anymore. There was a pattern to them. She watched the pattern until it repeated. She’d learned about this in an Earth history class: Morse Code.

The lights blinked: _short, long, long, long_. Then a pause: _short, long, short, short_. Then another pause and it repeated.

“J” and “L”… Jack and Lweah!

Containing her sudden excitement and anxiousness, she stretched her back, which was already getting sore from sitting in that position, and turned to get on her knees. Then carefully, painfully, got herself onto her feet. The Cardassian guard stiffened, but she scoffed at him, “Relax. My arm’s just getting numb.”

Just as she was beginning to wonder what their plan was, the lights and force fields winked out with a declining hum. In the emergency lighting, she could see the guard lift his phaser to the other two, keeping them in their cells. Kee, of course, remained chained to the structure.

The gul, glinn and another guard hurried in with their phasers drawn. They looked far more agitated than she’d have expected for only two intruders. The glinn stood next to the guard covering Maggie and Loren while the gul with the other guard marched over to Kee. With the guard’s phaser trained on her, the gul reached over and unlatched the restraints from the wall. Then he grabbed her other arm and added it to the restraints, locking it down tight around the broken bone. Kee did her best not to react, but winced as pain shot up her arm.

Once the gul had her restrained, he pulled her roughly forward and pressed her down onto her knees. Loren made a move to reach her, but the glinn immediately slammed his phaser rifle into his stomach, forcing him to double over, then he aimed it at his head.

With a sick feeling of déjà vu, Kee cried out, “No!” Her stomach twisted, expecting to witness for the second time the death of the man she loved.

To her relief, the gul ordered him, “Don’t kill him just yet.” Then he tapped the comm unit on his arm to open a ship wide channel. “Starfleet team. This is your only warning, withdraw or we will kill the prisoners.”

Silence answered him. Kee wondered again what Jack and Lweha’s plan was. She, at least, remained ready for anything.

Suddenly the door to the holding area opened, drawing the attention of all four Cardassians. When no one was on the other side of the door, Kee ducked down and lashed out with her leg to sweep the gul’s feet out from under him. She vaguely perceived Maggie and Loren moving on the two that were guarding them. She’d taught both of them a bit more than the standard self-defense courses did.

Kee leapt to her feet just as a maintenance hatch was kicked into the room. With her arms still bound behind her back, she could only manage to knee the fourth Cardassian just as Jack emerged from the maintenance crawlway and jumped on him, wresting the tip of the guard’s phaser to point away from the others.

By then the gul was back on his feet but the quarters were too close and chaotic for him to use his phaser. He grasped her upper arms to restrain her but she shoved her shoulder against his elbow, breaking his grip on that side, then in rapid succession she slammed her knee in to his stomach, kicked him squarely in the chest and kicked the inside of his knee. As he dropped down she bashed her knee into his chin and he fell backwards unconscious.

As she checked to see that the others were similarly incapacitated, Jack searched the gul to find the deactivation switch for the restraints. He pulled out the unit and pressed the key. The restraints dropped away and the pain diminished immediately. She cradled her sore arm to her chest as she picked up a phaser rifle and hoisted it in her left hand. Maggie pushed past her into the holding cell’s rubble, but she ignored her. “Good to see you two.”

“Same here, but the reunion will have to wait, the power should be coming back on any minute.” He told her. Almost on cue, the lights came back up.

“Let’s move out.” She said and nodded for Jack to open the door.

* * *

Maggie tucked a small, straight piece of duranium composite into the back of her waist band as she followed the others through the corridor feeling vulnerable as the only one without a weapon. They had traveled only a short distance before phaser fire erupted at the front of their small group.

Kee, Jack and Loren managed to effectively surround Lweha and herself, maneuvering them in some determined direction. Between phaser volleys, Kee asked, “What happened with you two?”

“When the comms went dead, we backtracked,” Jack said, “and came across Cardassians searching the area, but no sign of the three of you. Lweha tracked you telepathically to what looked like an empty clearing, but she insisted that’s where you were.”

A pair of Cardassians came around the corner in the direction they were heading, forcing them to reverse down another corridor. Maggie wasn’t sure how she did it with only one functioning arm, but Kee managed to both guide and block her while still returning fire. She began to direct them down a side corridor, but Jack reached out to stop her. “Not that way.”

“The port hatch is the fastest way out.” She argued.

“We need to head out the aft hatch, though.” Without giving Kee a chance to decide, he continued in the direction they’d been going. She followed and he resumed his story, “So, I rigged up my tricorder to detect tachyon distortions and was able to identify the cloaked ship. Once we’d located an external hatch, we managed to get inside and hid in the maintenance crawlways. We found a juncture with a diagnostic console and from there I was able to project false sensor readings to make it look like Antares had returned and that there was a landing party surrounding the ship.”

“Nice!” Kee said as another barrage of phaser fire forced them to speed up their pace. Soon they found themselves backed up against a gear-like hatch similar to the ones she’d once seen on Deep Space Nine. Through the window, she could see the planet’s landscape.

With the others keeping up cover fire, Kee handed Maggie the phaser rifle and pulled the panel off of the keypad next to the hatch. Then she reached her left hand deep inside the circuitry. After a few moments of concentration, the massive hatch began to roll to the side.

Maggie handed the phaser back to Kee while Lweha and Loren squeezed through the widening gap and began to study the area for hostiles. Maggie emerged next in time to see Kee and Jack back their way out of ‘nothing’ with a doorway in it.

Jack stood next to the opening with his eyes darting back and forth between the edge of the door to the right as though calculating or measuring.

“Come on.” Kee said impatiently.

Finally, Jack pointed to empty space next to the door and told Loren and Kee, “Shoot right here.” Then lifted and aimed his own phaser. The three beams converged on a spot that quickly began to smoke. A moment later it sparked and a faint outline of the ship became visible for just a moment. “That’ll keep them from being able to lift off any time soon.”

“Go now!” Kee urged, ushering them away from the cloaked ship.

Once again, Kee and Jack lead the way, winding them through the sparse terrain. This part of the planet didn’t have much in the way of tall plant life, but what it lacked there it made up for with rock. Lots of it. Boulders, outcroppings, crevasses, fissures. Plenty of places for the cadets to hide, but plenty of places for them to be ambushed, too.

After moving uphill at a fast pace for a distance that finally made even Kee winded, she stopped the group, “Can you tell where they are?” She asked Lweha.

Lweha stared into the distance for a moment, breathing hard. “I can feel six of them out here with us.”

“Are they close?”

She paused again, “No, they’re half a kilome…”

“What?”

She shook her head, “I just lost them. They disappeared.”

“Some kind of dampening field.” Jack suggested. “Probably the same thing they were using when we first beamed down.”

Maggie spoke up, “If they’re not close, we have time to stop and take a look at that arm.” She told Kee.

Kee looked like she was going to reject that idea, but Maggie put on her most stubborn expression, which she’d learned from Kee herself, and she relented. “Ok.” Kee looked around, “Up there.” She guided them to a more sheltered location farther up the hill.

Resting her back against the rock face, Kee’s calm exterior cracked just a bit. Maggie could see the pain on her face. But, just as quickly, it vanished.

“Sit down. Let me take a look.” She told her. When Kee sat on the sparse groundcover, Maggie looked into her eyes, comparing her pupils against each other both in and out of the light. “You have a concussion. Do you feel dizzy? Sick? Tired?”

“Little bit.” She said, though from the way that glinn had slammed her head against the wall, Maggie suspected it was a massive understatement.

“Tell me if any of it gets suddenly worse. I need to take a look at your arm.”

Kee laid her phaser down on the ground and offered her right arm to Maggie. There was a deep bruise, but nothing poking the skin up. That was a good sign, at least.

“This is going to hurt.” Maggie told her.

“Just do what you need to do.” With that Kee closed her eyes and prepared herself for the pain.

Maggie felt as carefully as she could along the length of the two bones of her lower arm. The radius, or the equivalent of that bone, she’d never thought to learn the Bajoran name for it, was intact but may have had a hairline crack. Next, she felt along the ulna. Kee’s muscles twitched as Maggie’s fingers detected the break, which curved around the bone. “It’s a spiral fracture, only slightly misaligned.” She said pulling off her uniform tunic. “I’ll need to splint it.” She pulled out the piece of duranium she’d picked up earlier and began tearing strips of her tunic to secure the splint.

While she worked, Jack looked up from a comm unit he was working on. “What did you do to that cell, anyway?”

Kee smiled, “There’s a design flaw in the holding cells on that type of ship. You can cause a power surge in the shield generator by placing an uninsulated power source near it. I used a power cell I ‘borrowed’ from one of our friends and peeled off the casing.”

“Are you crazy? Removing the casing from a power cell is extremely dangerous.”

“So are the Cardassians.” Kee said plainly, but then sighed. “Didn’t work anyway, though. I wasn’t fast enough.”

Maggie tied the last piece onto the splint. As soon as her arm was secure, Kee was back on her feet. “Lweha, based on the last locations you had for the patrols, which direction do you feel is our best bet?”

She pointed farther up the mountain, roughly the direction they’d been going. “That way.”

“Up it is, then.” Kee said and they began to climb once again.

* * *

Darkness had begun to fall around them, but Kee kept not-so-gently urging them on. Loren was grateful for her persistence even through the fatigue, but it was beginning to get too dark to see. Finally, Kee stopped beside a tall segment of rock that jutted out from the mountainside and turned around to inspect the way they’d come. They’d ascended quite a distance and between the walls of rock they could see the dark valley stretched out behind them. It would have been a beautiful scene except that the valley held a partially cloaked Cardassian ship and an indefinite number of Cardassian troops searching for them.

“We need to stop for the night. We can barely see where we’re going anymore.” He told her.

She nodded, “I’d be a lot happier if we knew where the patrols were.” Then she looked up at the rock next to her and took a step back.

There was a flat ledge just above their heads and another larger one above that. He had a feeling he knew what she was thinking. “I’ll go, you’re hurt.”

“You don’t know what to look for. I’ll be fine, just give me a boost.”

“You can’t…” He began, but she had that look in her eyes that told him he wasn’t going to win. “I’ll go with you.”

She turned to the others, “Wait here.” Then he laced his fingers together and held them out to her. She placed her foot in his hands and he lifted her up high enough to grab the ledge with her good arm. She was heavier than he’d expected for someone so slight. Once she had ahold of the ledge, he changed his grip and pushed her the rest of the way up. Then he found some handholds and climbed up.

Up on the ledge, they followed the same procedure. He lifted her to grab the next ledge then pushed her up and followed. The higher ledge hung out away from the mountain side to offer an unobscured, panoramic view of the valley. Kee scooted out to the edge on her stomach and Loren moved up next to her. “I thought you were afraid of heights.”

“You tell me.” She held out her shaking hand in front of him and swallowed hard. Despite the dizzying height, she scanned the lowland slowly. He studied it but couldn’t see anything but darkness. Finally, she pointed, “See that? That flicker of green? That’s their scanner.”

He followed where she was pointing. At first, he couldn’t see anything, but after a long time he finally saw a faint green light, far away below them. “I see it.” He said, but she was already looking somewhere else.

“There’s another.” She pointed, “And another. And there.” She fell silent again for a long time, searching. “I count nine of them. Spread out in the valley, but they haven’t come up the mountain yet. If the temperature drops like it did last night, they’ll either have to go back inside, or the cold will at least slow them down considerably.” With that she pulled away from the edge.

He lowered himself back down to the first ledge. Kee swung her legs over the edge and let herself down as far as she could with only one arm. From there he reached up to catch her around the waist to gently set her down, then they repeated the process until they were both back on the ground.

Kee gave the others a quick recap of the enemy’s location, then said, “We should be ok to rest here for a few hours. I’ll take watch.”

Loren spoke up, “Uh, not by yourself.” Then he turned to Maggie, “If she has a concussion, it’s better for someone to be with her, right?”

Maggie nodded, “That’s right.”

Kee looked back and forth between the two of them and finally deflated a tiny bit. “Fine. But you two are overreacting.”

While they were working that out, Jack had settled himself down out of the way to work on the comm unit and Lweha set up a pile of stones near him. She tapped a few settings on her phaser and fired into the rocks until they glowed red. “Too bad we don’t have some kind of covering to keep the heat in.” She said, already shivering.

“Wake me if that headache gets any worse.” Maggie told Kee.

“I will. Get some rest.” She replied and found a spot where she could see both down the slope where they’d come from and up where he assumed they’d go next. Once she’d settled down in a cross-legged position, she began tapping through settings on her phaser and flipping open various access flaps to check its systems.

Loren realized her arms were bare so he slipped his uniform tunic off and handed it to her. “So, what’s the plan for morning?” He said quietly to avoid disturbing those who were resting.

She draped the jacket over her shoulders. “We keep moving. Either for another day and a half or until Jack can get a signal through to Antares.” She stole a glance at Jack who was still bent over several devices that he’d opened up and pulled the insides out.

“What if they give up and leave to track down somebody else on their list once they fix their ship.” Loren asked her.

She shook her head and laid her phaser across her lap. “They won’t.” She reached for his phaser and began going through the same procedure with it. “Not that easily anyway. They took a huge risk abducting four Federation citizens. If they had _any_ other leads, they never would have risked it. Besides, the people on that wall, the ones I know, at least, none of them would have any information about their target.” She shook her head. “No, they won’t leave without me if they can help it.”

She kept his phaser and handed him hers. “Here, this one’s got about twice as much power left as yours.”

“Are you saying I’m a bad shot?” He said, taking the weapon from her.

“No, I’m just better.” She teased. After looking over their surroundings for a moment, she said, “It’s possible they might leave their search party here while they lift off to face Antares in space.”

“Antares is, what, a Miranda class ship? It’s pretty outdated. That’s why they’re not on the front lines most of the time.”

“So is the Cardassian ship. It’s a pre-Occupation design that hasn’t been in use for decades, it’s practically an antique. Of course, if they’ve added a cloak, they may have augmented it in other ways.”

“Seems like you know a bit about Cardassian ships.”

She shrugged, “I had a good teacher. Ren was always eager to share his knowledge.” She smiled to herself. “I can’t tell you how many hours I spent at his side listening to what he had to say. Watching whatever he was doing, trying, and usually failing at first, to imitate it.”

“You miss him.”

She sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Especially at times like this.” She lowered her voice further. “I’ll tell you a secret. I have no idea what we’re going to do next. At any given moment, I’m just winging it. Right on the edge of panic.”

He snickered quietly, “I’m not sure if that’s comforting or disturbing. But it’s good to know I’m not the only one.”

“It’s always that way in situations like this. People think I’m confident, brave, whatever.” She looked over at him. “I’m not. I’m just really good at faking it.” He found that hard to believe, but she continued anyway. “There was a time, after we came out of an especially bad incident, when I wanted to give up. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I very nearly fell apart. Ren’s the one who pulled me back from the brink. Talked some sense into me.”

“Let me guess. He reminded you what you were fighting for.”

Kee scoffed, “Not exactly. He reminded me that we didn’t have a choice.”

“Got it!” Jack exclaimed, cutting off Loren’s response. “I was just able to ping Antares.” He manipulated his jury-rigged comm system, “What should the message say? It’s got to be short, no more than thirty characters.”

Kee spoke up, “Cardassians. Cloaked ship. And include the approximate coordinates of the ship.”

After a moment, Jack said, “Sent. Assuming they pick it up and decode it, it should only take them a few hours to return.”

Between Kee's skill and Jack's expertise, he allowed himself to indulge in a little bit of hope.

* * *

“Back! Back! Back!” Kee urged her friends. The passages between the huge slabs of rock were getting tighter. They now had to weave through one at a time. With the Cardassians moving in on them fast, a speedy retreat was becoming difficult. To their advantage, the tighter the rout, the harder it would be for the larger Cardassians to squeeze through. To their disadvantage, however, the sun was peeking up above the horizon right behind the Cardassians’ position, blinding her when she looked that way. Kee caught a glimpse of one of their pursuers and fired a few shots to hold them off until the cadets could get through.

She continued to move backward in the direction they were moving while keeping her face toward the Cardassians, but she backed right up into the other members of her group who had nearly came to a stop. When she turned around she could see why. The passage had narrowed even more. They’d have to squeeze through, and that would slow them down even more.

Kee knelt down to provide cover fire when the Cardassians caught up to them. Loren stood over her with his phaser ready. Together they held them off while the others squeezed through the tight opening.

Once the others were through, she told him, “Go, I’ll be right behind you.”

“No, you go, I’ll cover you.”

“Thanks, but I’m a smaller person, I’ll fit through faster. You go first.”

He hesitated, and just as she was about to jab him with her elbow to get him moving, he gave in. “Vulcan-like-logic.” He muttered and began wedging himself into the space.

She heard him twist and grunt his way through while she kept firing. Just as she took a peek to see that her phaser’s power was getting dangerously low, she heard him stumble through to the other side. While he reached back through to shoot over her head, she turned sideways and squeezed through with much less effort.

She followed the rest of the group, ducking around the corner just as the Cardassians reached the narrow section and fired through it at them. They’d only gone a short distance when she heard the telltale signs of more Cardassians advancing from the other direction. “Back this way.” She told her companions and guided them back to a slight recess in the pathway.

“They have both directions blocked off. We’re trapped.” Jack said unnecessarily.

Kee practically shoved the others as far back behind the edge as she could and the four with phasers fired toward the approaching Cardassians. Weapons fire blasted the rocky protrusion they were hiding behind, disintegrating it a little more with each hit and showering them with hot rocks and dust. Just when their cover was nearly gone, she heard the distinctive high pitch shriek of Starfleet phasers above them.

When the dust began to clear, she looked up to see both red- and gold-uniformed officers that she recognized from Antares on the ledges above them, firing down into the rock cleft like they were shooting a cage of voles. She heard Commander Hawkins order Security Chief Rice and two others to stay with the cadets while the rest pursued the suddenly retreating Cardassians.

Leaving the two ensigns to stand guard, Lieutenant Rice jumped down to them with a med kit and handed it over to Maggie, who tore into it immediately.

Rice looked over each one, “Only the one injury?” He asked.

Maggie spoke up first while disassembling the splint on Kee’s arm. “Yes, sir, just Cadet Norv.”

He nodded, “There’s a dampening field blocking the transporter in this area and it’s about five-hundred meters back to the beam-out site.”

All but Kee nodded their understanding while Maggie worked. With the crude splint removed she scanned her with the tricorder. Kee waited with as much patience as she could manage. There were still Cardassians in the area to track down and the longer they waited, the harder that would be. After studying the tricorder for a long time, Maggie pressed a hypospray to her neck and the pain in her head was gone instantly.

Finally, she pulled a compression splint out of the med kit and wrapped it around her arm. While she secured the splint, Kee addressed Rice, “Sir, I request that you allow me to remain on the planet with the landing party to help take the Cardassians into custody.”

“Out of the question, Cadet, you’re injured.”

“Sir, I’ve been in worse situations. With Cadet Capshaw’s care, I’m already able to function better now that I have for the last day. I know the Cardassians. I can be an asset here.”

“Our orders are to get the five of you back to the ship, not take you into battle.” He turned away, indicating the discussion was over.

“Please, sir.” She moved in front of him, dropping all formality from her voice. “They have pictures of some of my friends on their wall. If they get away, they could go after them next. And it wouldn’t be the first time some Cardassian has gone on a killing spree for revenge.”

He regarded her for a long moment. She knew she was breaking protocol and asking him to break more protocols and disobey orders on her behalf. But she couldn’t just walk away from this. It was worth risking a reprimand in her record. Finally, he asked Maggie, “Cadet Capshaw, is it your opinion that Cadet Norv is fit for temporary duty?”

Maggie gave Kee a look that told her she wasn’t happy about being put on the spot, but told Rice, “If she doesn’t push herself too hard, she should be ok for another few hours. More than that and she needs to be treated in sickbay.”

He nodded and turned to the officers standing guard above them, “Get these four to the beam-out location. Cadet Norv and I will join the others.”

“Thank you, sir.” She said and followed him away without checking to see the reaction from her teammates, who she was sure were unhappy.

Once they were out of earshot, he said to her without amusement, “You might want to review away team protocols when we get back to the ship.”

“Yes, sir.” She said curtly.

“Once we’re able to pin them down, you stay on the perimeter. I don’t want you in the middle of an engagement with a handicap.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that understanding, he pulled the hand phaser off of his hip and handed it to her. “Can you shoot with your left?”

She smirked, “Yes, sir.” She repeated again but this time with confidence.

* * *

It wasn’t difficult to track the battle. Without tall trees to dampen the sound, the weapons fire echoed through the whole valley. Kee was certain they were right on the tail of the Starfleet team, but she watched their surroundings closely for Cardassians attempting to flank them.

Soon enough she spotted a trace of a Starfleet-gold uniform. Rice crouched down to get the officer’s attention. “Pst! Rezek!”

The ensign turned and backtracked to them. “Hawkins is over there.” She said, indicating the commander’s location to the right.

Rezek returned to her position as Kee followed Rice in the direction indicated. This didn’t seem right. Why would the Cardassians be retreating to the north when their ship was to the south? The ship surely would be a better stronghold than anything out here.

The two reached Hawkins and another gold-uniformed ensign. Kee joined the ensign and began locating Cardassians based on their return fire. With her eyes on the battle but her ears on the commander and the security chief, she heard them exchanging muttered words. Finally, she managed to make out Rice saying, “Sir, she’s a security cadet, she falls under my command, I made the call.”

Kee couldn’t hear the commander’s response, but out of the corner of her eye she saw both senior officers join her and the ensign. A shift in the firing patterns indicated that the Cardassians were on the move again, still toward the north. She stopped Rice before he moved off in pursuit. “Sir, I feel like the Cardassians are trying to lure us away from their ship.”

Instead of Rice, Hawkins replied, “Why do you think that?”

“They’re moving in the opposite direction of their ship. I feel like they’re stalling. Cadet Higgins was able to sabotage some of their systems while we were there, but if they’re able to keep us busy while they repair them, they’ll simply beam their people up once they lift off. And they might stand a chance at evading Antares once they’re up there.”

He thought for a minute. “What do you propose?”

“There must be what, fifteen of them out here? We’re only talking about a crew complement of maybe twenty-one or twenty-four. I say we split up, half of us head back to their ship, the other half stays on their tail and makes enough noise that they think they’ve still got the whole landing party behind them.”

Hawkins stole a glance at Rice who spoke up. “It’s a sound plan.”

“Alright. I’ll stay with this group. Rice, pick your team and head back down to the south.”

“Norv, you’re with me. As well as Whitney, Woragit, O'Neil, Streck, Wagner and Lambert.” The selected team began to move in the opposite direction from the rest of the group.

It didn’t take long to reach the location where she knew they’d find the cloaked ship. She’d kept up a hard pace, but the security officers had no trouble keeping up. They stopped at the last little bit of cover before the clearing.

“You’re sure this is where the ship is?”

“Yes, sir. We caused some damage to their propulsion system on our way out. They have to still be here.”

“Wagner and Norv, you stay here and cover us. The rest of you, split up into three teams and we’ll move in.”

Kee desperately wanted to argue, wanted anything but to be left on the sidelines, but she’d already pushed him as far as she felt she could, so instead she found a secure position behind a large rock where she had a good view of the clearing. Wagner nodded to her and circled around to another location.

With comms blocked, all she could do was wait and trust that her colleagues would carry out their duties. But, of course, they were Starfleet officers. There was no doubt in her mind that they would.

Suddenly a small Cardassian ship decloaked in the middle of the clearing, exactly where she remembered it was. There was no point in continuing to hide now that it was clear the Starfleet team knew their location. The moment it had fully shimmered into existence, it began firing into the surrounding area. Kee opened fire, targeting the ship’s phaser emitters with the highest power level her phaser could produce. Hand weapons were underpowered compared to onboard starship phasers, but this was an older ship, this many hand phasers and compression phaser rifles just might be enough. Seven other phaser beams converged on the two emitter mounts, finally blasting them to pieces.

The infiltration teams began to move in just as the two exterior hatches she could see from her position opened with soldiers just inside. Kee fired a few shots at the openings before hearing a sound behind her. She whipped around too late to use her phaser. The glinn who’d beaten her up earlier, who’d broken her arm, who’d threatened Maggie, rushed at her. He threw a wide punch that connected with her jaw, sending her tumbling backward over the rock. Somehow she lost her grip on her phaser and she saw the glinn leap over the rock toward her just as she was rolling to her feet.

He punched at her again and this time she caught his forearm with her left hand, twisted it to the side and jabbed her right elbow into his face. The impact sent pain shooting through the injured bones, but she ignored it. The splint would protect them.

He reached around the left-front of her chest and slammed her sideways into the rock. She still held onto his forearm and twisted it around to swing him against the rock too. His head hit and while he was still dazed she drove the heel of her left hand into his nose, crushing the cartilage. Then kneed him hard in the stomach, forcing him to drop to his knees.

Doubled over, he pulled a knife from somewhere and suddenly lashed out and sunk it into her thigh. A half-articulated curse erupted from her throat. In the moment before the pain became debilitating, she hammered her knee into his face in the same spot she’d hit before. His head snapped back against the rock and he fell to the ground without getting up.

Kee balanced on her uninjured leg and watched to see that he was still breathing. “Not so tough without your thugs to back you up.” She said to him. As she looked up, she could see the rest of the team already hauling a few cuffed Cardassians out of the ship. Kee breathed in relief and worked to stay on her feet for beam-out.

* * *

Captain Russell stood in sickbay waiting for her first officer to brief her. Meanwhile, she overheard part of a conversation between two of the cadets.

“I had said ‘ _don’t_ push yourself’, by the way.” Cadet Capshaw chastised her.

Cadet Norvish, ‘Norv’ from what Hawkins had said, put on an innocent expression, “What? It’s just a knife wound.” She said, seeming to be genuinely baffled by her friend’s reaction.

Capshaw set down the medical tools she’d been using. Dr. Evans and Nurse T'son were busy tending to some of the other injuries her security officers had received during the operation and Capshaw volunteered to tend to the other cadets. She shook her head, “Somehow I get the feeling I’m going to spend my entire career patching up people like you.”

Norv grinned wide and wrapped an arm around Capshaw’s shoulders. “I love ya too, Maggie.”

Russel smiled, remembering those kinds of friendships. 

Hawkins continued, “From what we can tell, these Cardassians aren’t affiliated with the Central Command or the Dominion. They’re rogue mercenaries, pursuing some anonymous informant for the Bajoran Resistance that may or may not even exist. According to their ship’s logs, they’ve already captured, interrogated and killed three former members of the Resistance over the last six years. Cadet Norv is also a former member with some kind of peripheral connection to the target.” Hawkins said.

“How did they get into the system without our detecting them?”

“We suspect they had landed on the planet and cloaked before we arrived.”

“Which suggests they knew ahead of time which planet they would be assigned to.”

“Correct.”

She didn’t like the sound of that, but the immediate concern was cleaning up this mess, Starfleet Command would have to look into the security breach themselves. “How many Cardassians do we have in custody?”

“Nineteen. We don’t have enough space in the brig, so we set up a holding area in the cargo bay.” Russel nodded her approval, then he continued. “The ships complement was twenty-one. Our theory is that the missing two are down there somewhere using personal scattering fields to mask their locations. Rice and his team are searching the area.”

“Good work.” She told him and he turned away with a quick nod. Doctor Evans left the cadets who had clustered around Norv. “How are they, Doctor?” She asked him.

“Shaken, but they’ll all be fine. Cadet Norv suffered the majority of the injuries, typical security officer behavior of course, but nothing we couldn’t fix.” He said irritably. “Cadet Capshaw accurately diagnosed and field-treated a spiral fracture to Cadet Norv’s arm, after which Lieutenant Rice allowed her to remain in play, resulting in a knife wound that narrowly missed her femoral artery. Details will be in my report.”

“Thank you.” She considered speaking to the cadets, but decided to leave them to each other for now. The sickbay doors opened for her as she turned to leave. As soon as they had detected the distress call they’d sent shuttles to check on the other teams and beam them out if necessary. When she reached the bridge, she would find out whether they had checked in yet. Only a few paces down the corridor, though, she heard the sickbay doors open again. She turned to see Cadet Norv hurrying toward her. “Can I help you Cadet?”

“I was talking with the other cadets,” She hesitated, “And as soon as it’s safe, we’d like to return to the surface to complete our assignment.”

The request took her back, “You want to complete your assignment?” She shook her head and continued walking with the cadet at her side, “don’t worry, you’ll all get a satisfactory grade without having to go back down.”

Norv stopped and turned toward her. “ _Satisfactory?_ ” She said the word as though it was an insult. “Would you be willing to accept a _satisfactory_ grade?” 

Russel regarded the young woman. She hadn’t read up on the backgrounds of the cadets who were passengers on her ship, she was more interested in finishing this assignment and getting back to spacedock for those retrofits they'd been waiting for. It had surprised her when Hawkins mentioned that this one had been part of the Bajoran Resistance. Once the situation was resolved, she had some reading to do. She considered the consequences of granting the request, as well as the guts to make the request itself. Norv had included the qualification as soon as its safe, after all. “Very well. When Lieutenant Rice has determined that it’s safe, I’ll send you down. With a couple of security officers, just in case.”

Norv smiled, “Thank you, sir!”

“Dismissed.” The Bajoran cadet returned to sickbay to inform her team. None of them struck her as what she would call ambitious, but insisting on completing their assignment after what had happened showed a drive beyond simple ambition. Something far better. She would have to keep an eye on these five, maybe she would have some openings around the time they graduated.

* * *

Russel leaned on her desk as she began the playback on her computer screen.

-Commander Kantor, 2371-

_“My name is Commander Kantor. As a citizen of a non-Federation world, Norvish Keedra has asked me to provide a letter of recommendation as part of her application for Starfleet Academy. I ran the Bajoran relief effort in Joralla for most of 2369 and 2370. I found her to be capable, dedicated, willing to learn. We occasionally had security issues when delivering supplies, Kee’s experience, as well as others like her, was invaluable towards keeping the provisions safe. She was also respectful and trustworthy. In my opinion all traits that more than qualify her for acceptance into the Academy.”_

She ended the recording and sat back in her chair, and called up the next evaluation in the file.

-Captain Ren, 2372-

_“This is Captain Ren Larno of the Bajoran Militia. As her former commander, I’ve been asked to record a letter of evaluation for Norvish Keedra._

_“They say that in the resistance there were no heroes, only desperate people. For the most part, that’s true, myself included. But I believe that Kee is the exception to that rule. She’s the one that will go rushing in when everyone else is running away. Puts her life on the line for others without complaint or even a second thought. She is truly a hero, through and through._

_“Ten years ago, after my cell rescued her and some others from the Cardassians, we had intended to take them to a safe house, but they refused to go, insisting that we allow them to join us. Kee… was the ringleader. I have never once regretted my decision. Over the years, I’ve seen something in Kee that goes beyond just duty and obligation. I took on her training personally and worked with her for two years with the intent that she would one day replace me. By the end of that time, she’d surpassed me in almost every way. She’s smart, tough, loyal and dedicated. She’s a quick learner and by far the most decent and honest person I’ve ever known. If she suspects what you’re doing isn’t right, she will absolutely let you know about it._

_“In the end, Starfleet would benefit greatly by having her as a member. And for any captains or commanders considering bringing her onto your team, you’d be foolish to overlook her. I’ve certainly tried my best to get her to join the militia so I could have her on my crew.”_

-Captain Furen, 2373-

_“I’m Captain Bryan Furen, this is an evaluation of Cadet Norvish Keedra from her sophomore field studies. It’s my opinion that Cadet Norvish is a smart, capable and driven individual. She’s exceptional in the area of security with little to no interest in other divisions. Follows orders well. Extremely disciplined. Respectful. Has a little trouble keeping her language clean, though.” He said with a small laugh. “All in all, she’ll make a fine officer.”_

-Commander Baker, 2374-

_“I’m Commander Baker, senior Academy instructor, security division, this is an evaluation of Cadet Norvish Keedra. First off, Cadet Norv achieved high scores or completely passed many of the placement exams during the initial evaluation period in her first year. She has a unique style that’s effective and creative. I’ve had her teach a number of classes ranging from personal combat to non-standard weaponry. She has a knack for training and command, her students always have the highest scores during final exams. She almost always ends up taking the lead in field training exercises, but the other cadets don’t seem to mind. I highly recommend her for, really, any position within the security field. A detailed eval is attached.”_

Russel tapped a note out on a padd to remember to send in a request for Cadet Norvish as soon as she graduated.


	10. STARFLEET: 2375, YEAR 3

Kee’s attention was focused steadily on the Bajoran news feed. Some kind of standoff had developed between the militia and the Romulans relating to Derna. Romulan warships were closing on the moon where twelve militia ships had formed a blockade. One of them was the Krehu, Ren’s ship. She had no doubt he and the other captains would hold their ground, but if the Romulans didn’t back down… She couldn’t bring herself to consider the possibility of losing him.

\- - -

Ren’s arms wrapped around her small shoulders as he adjusted her grip on the phaser rifle, reminding her to relax her fingers and back. She lifted the heavy weapon and peered down the sight to aim at a mark he’d made on a faraway rock. He let go of her hands to allow her to do it herself. She lined up the shot, breathed out slowly and squeezed the trigger. Immediately a beam of energy surged out of the weapon, just grazing the rock she was aiming for.

“Good, you’re getting better.” He told her as she prepared to try again.

\- - -

He was too strong for her. No matter how hard she tried, he threw her down to the ground over and over. Her muscles ached as she stood up, but she was determined to get this. Her opponents would always be bigger and stronger than her, she had to learn how to use their size to her advantage.

“Do you want to take a break?” Ren asked her.

“No, let’s go again.” She said.

\- - -

Ren and Kee had taken a short trip away from the rest of the cell to meet with a contact. It was early enough in the fall that the evenings were normally still warm, but a cold front had moved in and caught them unprepared. Kee shivered in front of the small fire she’d built and pulled her knees in close to her chest. A larger fire would be unwise with the enemy nearby.

Ren returned from placing proximity sensors around the area and sat next to her. “Here.” He said, wrapping his arms around her. She leaned her head on his chest for a while, enjoying the warmth that developed between them.

Despite the hunger pains in her stomach and the icy numbness in her fingers, despite the fear that they’d awake to Cardassians surrounding them, she felt content sharing warmth with him and quickly drifted off to sleep.

\- - -

Kee sat cross-legged, watching her blood flow through a small tube directly into a vein on Ren’s arm. He laid there, only semiconscious. She watched over the man who had taught her and protected her so many times and begged the Prophets that her transfusion would allow him to recover.

\- - -

Keeping watch over the group of four rebels who had survived the massacre, Kee leaned her back against the wall of the cave opening. They had placed proximity sensors around outside, but weren’t taking any risks. If the Cardassians found them before, they could find them now.

She absentmindedly flipped her phaser’s safety switch on and off, wanting to be out there looking for the ones responsible. Tracking them down incase other cells were in danger too. But Ren maintained that it was too dangerous, at least until they knew how they had been tracked and ambushed. He was right, of course.

Kee heard a noise behind her in the cave and turned to see Ren coming towards her. He sat down across from her. “Couldn’t sleep?” She asked.

“Not a bit.” He said, his tone giving away the weariness he must have felt.

“I’m not sure if I’ll ever sleep again.”

“You will.” He assured her and took her hand, “We’ll make it through this and we’ll keep fighting on behalf those who can’t.”

\- - -

“I just don’t want you to get hurt.” Ren said, sitting next to her on the ground. “This is a dangerous business we’re in.”

Kee kept her head bowed, didn’t look up at him as she spoke. “I know. But I love him, and if one of us dies, isn’t it better to have at least had some time together than none at all?” He didn’t respond, just slid a hand around her shoulder to pull her close.

\- - -

“Do you understand how stupid what you did was?!”

Kee was sure Ren’s sharp rebuke stung worse than the needle Ilwea was using to stitch up the gash across her back. She fought to keep the tears out of her eyes and offered no argument or excuse for her actions.

“What were you thinking?” He continued.

“I wasn’t.” She mumbled.

“Damn right you weren’t!” He said, not letting up at all. “You could have gotten yourself or somebody else killed!” He was right to scold her and it broke her heart to think that she had lost his trust.

\- - -

Kee sat on a fallen tree with her head bowed down and her back to the rest of the cell. She hadn’t said a word to anyone since returning from her mission without Traie and was grateful that they’d all left her alone. Finally, Ren approached and sat down next to her, wrapping an arm silently around her shoulder to hold her close. She felt hollow and empty. No tears came, she had the pain locked away and never intended to let it out.

\- - -

Kee slipped under water as quickly as stealth would allow. Placing a hollow reed between her lips so she could breathe, she hooked her feet around the underwater root of a tree to anchor herself next to Ren, who was doing the same. Up through the murky water she could see the blurry forms of Cardassian soldiers walking along the bank.

After a few minutes a tree branch plunged into the water not far away, then pulled back out. The Cardassians probed the water, searching for them. The branch passed by over her head without touching her, but it knocked the reed out of her mouth. Kee held her breath, fighting the urge to come up out of the water for air, wondering if she would drown before the Cardassians gave up.

Her lungs burned and just when the urge to take a breath felt overwhelming, she felt Ren’s hand on the back of her neck pulling her toward him. He pressed his lips to hers and breathed air into her lungs. Then he pulled back to breathe through the reed again. They coordinated their breathing like that for a long time, until they were sure the Cardassians had given up.

\- - -

Kee watched the depth of the forest for a long time after Joial, Cadda and Naren left to take Ilwea to one of the safehouses. A lump lingered in her throat even as she struggled to suppress the memory of what just happened to him. What the Cardassians had done to him was more horrible that anything she’d ever witnessed. She would have given her life to end it, but it was not permitted. He was out of the fight now, permanently.

Finally, she turned to Ren with a shaking voice, “I can’t do this anymore.”

He put his hand on the small of her back, turned her around and firmly guided her away from the rest of the group.

So much death, so much pain, she couldn’t keep it up. She’d lost so much. They’d all lost so much, it was too devastating to bear. And the rest of her life spread out before her like vast emptiness. An abyss that she was helpless to prevent herself from falling into. The only one holding her back was Ren and only by a thread.

When they had privacy from the others, he took her face in his hands and forced her to look him in the eye. “You’re strong enough to get through this.” He told her firmly.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to be. I can’t do it anymore.” She nearly sobbed.

“Kee, look at me.” His eyes drilled into hers with a blend of strength and compassion. With a steadiness that held her fixed. “I understand what you’re going though. But you _will_ keep fighting. Because that’s the only thing we _can_ do.”

She held his gaze. Her breathing calmed. He’d provided a path through the void. A difficult one with an uncertain future, but a path nonetheless. He must have seen her acceptance because he moved his hands from her face to her shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze.

Her legs suddenly felt weak and she dropped to her knees in the dry leaves. She knelt there, regathering her strength. He moved to the side and walked back to the others, leaving her alone.

\- - -

The first few weeks following the Withdrawal had been chaotic. The need for food and shelter was urgent and help couldn’t arrive fast enough. Kee did her best to make sure the residents of the safe house were taken care of. When they’d emerged from the bunker everything had been destroyed, their only salvation was a supply stash hidden in the weapons locker, which they’d had to dig through the rubble of the house to get to.

Once the government had begun to organize and Starfleet arrived with personnel and supplies, Kee and her two companions returned to Joralla to meet up with the rest of the cell. She hadn’t been away from Ren for that long in the seven years they’d known each other and when she saw him she threw herself into his arms. He wrapped her in a loving embrace. Her heart felt like it would burst.

Finally, he pulled back and she could see the grin on his face. His expression said it all, _we did it!_

\- - -

Kee waited in the lobby of the militia office for Ren to come out. She’d heard that Ren would be stopping by there for some kind of debriefing after the Circle incident. Being well known as pro-Federation, the Krehu had been sent to the far reaches of Bajoran space so they wouldn’t be able to interfere with the coup.

She and Ren had made plans to meet with some of the others for dinner that night, but she had news that she was anxious to share with him. Finally, she saw him enter the lobby and hurried towards him. He smiled when he saw her approaching and greeted her with a hug. “I thought I wouldn’t see you until tonight.”

“I know, but I didn’t want to wait.” She paused for only a moment, “I’m in! I’ve been accepted into Starfleet!”

“That’s wonderful!” He exclaimed and swept her up for a big hug. “When will you go?”

She sighed, “It depends on how long it takes me to get through all of the prerequisites, which looks like it could take a couple of years.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and began guiding her away from the building toward the public walkway. “Good. That gives me a couple of years to get used to the idea of you being on the other side of the quadrant.”

\- - -

Kee was so focused on the news feed that she jumped at the sound of the door chime. “Come.” She said automatically.

Maggie entered and paused when she saw that Kee was distracted by the display on her console. “I was just wondering if you finished your part of the survey report.” She said tentatively.

Kee pointed to a padd on the corner of her desk without looking up.

“What’s that you’re watching?” Maggie asked, picking up the padd.

Kee pointed out the Krehu on the news feed. “That’s Ren’s ship.”

“Are those Romulans?” She exclaimed. “But they’re our allies!”

“They’re the Federation’s allies, not necessarily Bajor’s. There’s still a difference.” Kee corrected. “They’re being really vague about what’s actually happening. It’s possible we’ll never know officially.” She watched the tense standoff with Maggie as the narrator prattled on, repeating the few facts they knew followed by a number of theories: that the Romulans considered themselves a more important ally to the Federation than Bajor and were taking the opportunity to conquer them, that the Romulan ships were actually disguised Dominion vessels, and, most ridiculous, that the Federation was using the Romulans and their new alliance to carry out a long-desired invasion of Bajor.

Then, without a shot fired, the Romulan ships began breaking away. Kee nearly shouted with vicarious triumph, but only laughed and collapsed her head to the desk in relief.


	11. STARFLEET: 2375, END OF YEAR 3

Kee watched her computer interface while working on an assignment on a padd. Her team had turned in their planetary survey report two days ago and were expecting the grade to come in by the end of the day. All five of them had been highly praised for their actions and quick thinking on the planet. The attention made Kee uncomfortable. After all, it was her presence and her personal history that had caused the team to be put in danger in the first place.

By now, though most of it had died down and she felt like things were finally back to normal. In about a month they would be completing their third year and she would again be faced with making excuses why she would not be returning home over the short break. She missed Bajor and her friends, but her mother’s constant pressure to quit and come home along with her brother’s hateful attitude towards her made impossible to be there.

A message popped up on her display, notifying her that they had received the highest possible grade for their survey project. She smiled to herself, not really having expected anything else. Maggie was a chronic overachiever and would have settled for nothing less.

Her door chimed just then and she called, “Come in.” Wondering why anyone would be stopping by this late.

The door opened and Loren stepped inside holding a pad. She felt like he had been avoiding her since their trip. “Hey, the grade on our project came in.”

“I know. I got it too... about thirty seconds ago.” She smiled, pointing at her computer. Of course he knew that she would have received it too, it felt like an excuse.

“Oh. Ok.” He stood just inside the doorway, seeming to decide whether to stay or leave. “Ca-Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure.” The cadet rooms didn’t have much in the way of furniture, just a bed a desk and a chair. It seemed serious, so she moved to sit at the foot of the bed and motioned for him to join her.

He was silent for long moments before finally saying, “Do you think the Cipher person is still out there somewhere?”

She doubted that’s what he had wanted to talk to her about, but she went with it anyway. “I don’t know. Hopefully he was able to go on and make a life for himself like the rest of us.”

“We never would have made it back there without you.”

She blew out a short breath, “You wouldn’t have been in danger if it wasn’t for me.”

“Look,” He said, seeming to finally get to his point, “We’ve known each other for almost three years now. I’ve enjoyed our friendship and the time we’ve spent together.” He leaned imperceptibly closer and she breathed in the scent of his cologne. “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, but I don’t want to avoid this anymore.” His fingertips brushed gently against hers. Her heart was pounding now, she couldn’t manage to make eye contact. “Our friendship means a lot to me, but I want us to be more. Kee, I’m in love with you.”

His face was right next to hers and she turned slightly toward him, staring at his mouth. With only a slight movement his lips were pressed lightly against hers. Before she knew what she was doing, she closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss, curling her fingers around his. His lips were soft and warm and she tipped her head to the side to kiss deeper. She felt his hands slip around her waist sending chills through her body and she reached up to run her fingers through his hair.

All the times she had ignored the impulse to be close to him melted away as they kissed. Why had she always pushed him away? Why did she have to be so stubborn? The world melted away from her awareness. All she could think about was how she wanted more of him.

Kee shifted and moved her leg to straddle his lap, pressing her body against his and it was clear that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. He held one arm tight around her waist and slid the other up her back, making her skin tingle at his touch. More than anything she wanted to feel his hands on her skin. She pulled off her uniform tunic and turtleneck, he did the same without his lips leaving hers. He ran his hands up her arms and around her shoulder blades.

She pulled her tank top over her head, leaving only her undergarment. His hands wrapped around her bare waste and slid up her spine. Anticipation surged through her body. She tipped him back onto the bed and together they moved and adjusted so that his head was on her pillow.

He finally looked up at her straddling him with his hands around her middle. “Wow, you’re gorgeous.”

She smiled and leaned down to kiss him again. He slipped his thumbs below her undergarment and gently slid them across her breasts. She reached up and pulled off the undergarment. Eventually they awkwardly kicked off their boots and pants, laughing at the clumsiness.

He turned her onto her back with him on top. She couldn’t help giggling as he kissed down her neck and between her breasts. Finally, she took his face in her hands to pull him back up to kiss her and ran her hands up his muscled arms. When she felt like she couldn’t wait any longer she began to slip off his last piece of clothing.

* * *

Loren watched Kee resting next to him. She was laying almost flat on her stomach, her face pointing away from him and her arms tucked under the pillow that was bunched under her chin. An elegant black tattoo crawled across her back, tendrils twisting and looping out from a main stem that ran diagonally from her left hip to her right shoulder. Adding a three-dimensional quality there were touches of metallic silver highlights. He’d known she had the tattoo, but had never seen all of it. He traced one of the tendrils with his finger, “This is beautiful.”

She turned her head to face him, “It covers up a scar.” She said without elaborating. He looked closely and saw a slight imperfection in the skin under the black ink.

“It’s still beautiful.” He said then kissed her back.

She turned her naked body to fully face him, flattening out her pillow under her head and he pulled her close to him. She closed her eyes and her body melted into his. They’d been friends for almost three years and he’d fallen in love not long after meeting her. He admired her integrity and her determination. Beyond that she was smart and creative. Most importantly, she laughed at his jokes. He’d been completely and totally in love with her for a long time and wished he’d had the courage to say so earlier. He was about to tell her as much when he realized her eyes were closed and her breathing slow and even.

He watched her sleep, he’d never seen her face so relaxed. He knew she had a dark past that sometimes haunted her, and she was never truly carefree and happy. There were times when she’d opened up to Maggie or himself about something in her past, but he always got the feeling that there was more she wasn’t telling them. He never pressed for more information, but he wanted to somehow make her understand that there was nothing she could say that would change how he felt about her. At the very least, he hoped he could bring her some kind of happiness.

He breathed in her scent, a faint mixture of Bajoran spices that he’d learned to associate with her. Her skin also smelled like his cologne and he smiled thinking about how that had happened. Her soft, warm skin, her back arched in pleasure as they shared their bodies. It had only been a matter of minutes since then, but it already seemed like a long time ago. He brushed some hair away from her face and watched her sleep.

* * *

Kee sat down cross-legged on the floor of her room with a traditional daranja lamp cradled in the palms of her hands. She sat there for several minutes, willing herself to continue. Finally, she picked up a plasma lighter and lit the wick inside. She took a moment to breathe in the scent of the incense and infused oil until the smoke began to burn her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Traie. I should have done this a long time ago.” Her throat tightened and she dismissed the urge to tamp down the feelings again. She _needed_ to feel this. “When it first happened, I couldn’t bear to go on without you. But I had no choice. I did what I had to.” She stopped again and watched a tear fall into the candle, sizzling in the hot oil. “I’ve held on to you all these years. You’re always with me somehow. A part of me. But tormenting myself this way won’t bring you back. The life we would have had together is gone. I have to let you go.”

She bent over the candle’s smoke again, pausing on the edge of surrender, uncertain if she really wanted to let him go. Then she swallowed hard and began reciting the words she’d memorized as a small child. The prayer for the dead.

"Raka-ja ut shala morala...” _do not let him walk alone... __“ema bo roo kana...” _guide him on his journey... __“uranak...” _protect... __“ralanon Traie...” _the one named Traie... __“propeh va nara ehsuk shala-kan vunek ..." _take him into the gates of heaven..._____

* * *

Kee sat, propped against the head of Loren’s bed with his head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair absentmindedly as she leaned her head against the wall with her eyes closed. She finally looked down at him, his eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn’t asleep. Her feelings for him deepened with each moment they spent together, though there was always a twinge in her heart for the love she still held for Traie.

They had completed the last of their third-year final exams the previous day and were relaxing together. Not really doing anything, just silently existing together, which felt good after the pressure of finals. Kee’s tests had included several grueling physical challenges and she appreciated the fact that he wasn’t interested in doing anything else. The two padds they’d been using earlier sat stacked on the nightstand.

Loren’s cat, T’Puss, jumped up onto the bed. The sleek, black feline walked back and forth in front of him, meowing, purring and rubbing the full length of her body across his face. He reached over and began petting her obediently.

“She seems upset.” Kee offered.

“She’s unhappy that I’ve been spending most nights at your place.”

Kee reached down to stroke the cat. “Too bad we can’t stay here, but your bed is too small.”

“Yeah, how’d you end up with a double bed anyway?”

She shrugged, it wasn’t like she really needed such a large bed, she’d spent the majority of her life without a bed at all. “If she’s that upset about you being gone, why don’t you bring her next time you stay over?”

“Really?” He said as though it was the last think he’d expected her to suggest.

“Yeah. There’s no reason she should have to be alone all night. I’m not trying to steel you away from her.”

“I’m pretty sure she thinks that’s what you’re doing. I’d need to set up a water bowl and a sand box.”

“That’s fine.” She said, rubbing the cat under the chin.

Suddenly both of the padds came to life at once. Their screens displaying a general message to all cadets. Loren picked one up, concern etching his face as he read it. “They’re pulling next year’s senior class out early to help fight the Dominion. Postings will be sent out shortly.”

He looked up at Kee. There was very little chance they’d be assigned to the same ship, and with the way the war was going, there was a real possibility one of them would be killed. She wasn’t sure if she could go through that, not again. But they had their duty, this is what they’d signed up for. To defend the Federation. 

Kee retrieved her padd and stood up, her overworked muscles protesting as she took a few steps away toward the window. Loren came up behind her and put his arm around her waist. “We’ll be together again after the war is over.” He said, echoing a similar sentiment Traie had once voiced.

“Of course.” She said, though she didn’t believe it. 

Loren finally spoke, “At least now you’ll have an excuse to avoid visiting your mother.”

Kee laughed, but not with joy, “Yeah, but this is much worse. She’s going to flip. You think I have a temper…”

He chuckled, “I know, I’ve overheard a few times.” Realizing the time, he added, “Do you want to go get some dinner?”

“Sure.” They left his room and walked toward the cafeteria, but a chirp from their padds interrupted them, indicating new messages. She glanced at the title of the message, “It’s the assignments.” She took a breath and opened the message, “I’m… being assigned to the Antares under Captain Russel. We leave in two weeks.”

Reading his own assignment, he said, “USS Malinche.” They continued to their destination with a heaviness surrounding them. The next two weeks might be the only time they’d have left. Ever.

* * *

Kee had packed the few belongings that couldn’t be replaced out of the replicator. A framed photo of her with Maggie and one with Loren. A few awards she’d received during her three years here. And a tiny box containing her father’s earring which she’d kept for the last twenty years. Captain Russel had evidently requested Kee and Maggie to be assigned to her ship. Kee was pleased that at least her close friend would be with her.

The door chimed, she knew it would be Loren. He wouldn’t be leaving for a couple more days. They’d agreed to say their goodbyes privately in her room. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Loren, not how she was accustomed to seeing him, but in the black, grey and red uniform of a fully commissioned officer. He looked unbelievably handsome and she wondered if it would be so bad for her to be fifteen minutes late. “You look great!”

“So do you. The uniform suits you.” He said. She’d almost forgotten that she was also wearing an officer’s uniform. She reached up to kiss him, deep and passionate, breathing in his scent for what could be the last time. Their arms wrapped around each other’s bodies. When their lips parted, he leaned his forehead against hers and said, “We’ll be together again when this is all over.”

_Deja vu._

“I have to be at the transporter pad in five minutes.” She looked into his eyes, “I love you.”

He kissed her one last time, “I love you, too.” With that she left him in what was no longer her room.

 

_End of Part 2_

Part 3: A past fighting for her people’s freedom has become a future fighting to protect the Federation, but there are still costs.


End file.
